Posted on 02/03/2009 1:57:23 PM PST by Sub-Driver
FMCDH(BITS)
Agree.
Sorry but that is a myth. It assumed that each nuke would have a destructive power > 3 Megatons which would have a total destructive area of many hundreds of square miles. In reality most of today's nukes are the 180KT variety with a destructive area of approx 20 sq miles.
The immediate killzone is the 2 miles radius immediately in the strike zone and more so for an air burst attack vs a ground detonation. So if you multiply 10,000 (assuming that is all the nukes still in inventory, we only have 4,500) and multiply it by 20 sq miles you hardly get the total land area of the earth.
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Chinese_military_chief_vows_nuclear_conventional_build-up_999.html
China will accelerate the build-up of its nuclear and conventional arsenal to form a credible deterrent, the general in charge of the country's strategic missile force said. "We will accelerate the building of our nuclear and conventional combat strength," said Jing Zhiyuan, the commander of the Second Artillery Corp, in an article he co-wrote for the authoritative journal Qiushi published on Sunday.
"We will strengthen the build-up of combat systems and improve the training of high-quality personnel," said the article.
China will also develop "a nuclear and conventional missile force corresponding to the needs of winning a war" in conditions changed by modern information technology, it said.
The Second Artillery Corps is an independent branch of the armed forces directly under the control of the powerful Central Military Commission. It is armed with hundreds of strategic and tactical missiles.
"The Second Artillery is the core of our nation's strategic deterrence. It is the main support pillar and backup force of our national security and development," the article said.
The corps' jobs include "deterring other countries from using nuclear weapons against China, and for conducting nuclear counter-attacks and precision strikes with conventional missiles," China said in a recent policy paper.
Quishi is a journal for the ruling Communist Party to publish policies and theories.
The United States has long expressed concern over China's military build-up, and accused the Chinese government of not being transparent about its defence spending.
China has said its military budget for 2008 was 417.8 billion yuan (61 billion dollars), a rise of 17.6 percent from the previous year.
Nobody can reduce Russian nuclear weapons (does that mean WARHEADS?) except Russia
Why would they want to?
Peace love fellowship and trust of that transformational black fella?
The Russians are serious racists- think blacks are apes. They are going to play this guy like a fiddle.
Oh, with issues like reliability and other factors considered and the number of targets and territory- it does make a difference.
Especially if they build an effective counter system defense and we have none.
Ok, pardon my hyperbole. Though I do think the inhabited parts of the earth, population centers, would be pretty much obliterated. But I don’t know.
Either way, I am against reducing inventories just for the sake of it.
Obama is proving that he is a zero every day that he is in office. Everyone knows that you can’t sign any agreement with the Russians that they will keep.
You would think that Obama would understand that, since the Democrats have the same attitude as Russia, when it comes to negotiating with Republicans.
Oh, great. I hadn’t even thought of that. We have a president who hasn’t learned anything since college.
It’s all cheap talk, BamBam’s only gift; Putin will give up 80% of his nukes when Hell freezes over. This latest BamBam jive talk is to give his adoring media corp something else to venerate him for.
I remember reading an account years ago about Jimmy Carter very first meeting with his national security team. He expressed an interest in reducing nuclear arms, and the team dutifully laid out the current state of negotiations with the Soviets, their capabilities, etc.
The newly-elected Carter stunned the military men into utter silence when he said his goal was to reduce nearly all of America’s nuclear weaponry. As I recall, the writer put it something like this: “Everyone in the room gasped inaudibly....”
Hussein is proving to be built in the same mold as the Neville Chamberlain in office from 77 to 81.
Pretty freakin’ pathetic when Bill Clinton begins to look like someone “strong” on defense.
Well, their term is "smoked".
And they are going to honor his treaty about as well as Hitler's.
Say for example you have a large city (e.g. Moscow with 41,000 square miles) which by itself is too much for a single 300kt nuke to destroy, a 300kt nuke would just piss them off btw.
Since the surface area of destruction would dramatically require an exponentially amount of nuclear material to cover the target area, the next approach is to use a number of similar sized nukes to go after the target but to attack it in a circular pattern (say a 5 ringed pentagram) with the 6th in the circle.
That way if you are trying to take out a huge city (e.g Moscow!!) then 3 ICBM each with 6-8 MIRVs can do the trick. Since the blast radius of each nuke is 20 miles, if you draw a circle 100 miles in diameter and drop a nuke at the 5 points of the circumference with the 6th in the middle, the ensuing conflagration give the effect of a blast 100 miles in diameter (or greater), howbeit to make & deliver a nuke to destroy a 100 mile diameter requires far more resources.
And for all the hype I've heard over the years of a MIRV can target independent cities is basically propaganda, their real intent to totally wipe out large cities with the cumulative blast power
Woohoo! That’ll allow the Russkies to dismantle their nukes and put the parts on the black market!
There's a whopper w/ cheese. Why would Britaon give a rats rear end what we/russians do?
But...but...Steve Urkel morphed into "Urquell", a smooth-talking playa! Wouldn't Obama do the same? ROFL
“Gee, maybe its just me...but this doesn’t seem nearly as important as say....THE ECONOMY MELTING DOWN.”
No, no, please don’t encourage him to get back to work on that. The less he does the better.
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