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Your ugly, condescending tone is utterly misplaced, since I explicitly (and oddly for a forum like FR) noted, “FOR DISCUSSION ONLY: I’M NOT AN EXPERT..

I didn't think it was ugly, but you are right about the condescension. "NOT AN EXPERT" and "FOR DISCUSSION ONLY" doesn't justify your war mongering but if you are going to do it I would appreciate it if you put a little more thought into your efforts. It's kind of hard to "discuss" your ideas without pointing out the errors in your assumptions right up front.

While there are very advanced technologies in developing the most effective ground-penetrating warhead possible, it’s not nearly as difficult to create a bomb that can withstand terminal velocity.

Spoken like a true expert - which you have admitted you are not. Attaching a proximity detector (bought off the shelf right over the border in China) vs developing a nuclear weapon that can detonate after hitting the ground. Yeah, right, those two are in the same ball park and yet you said that it would have to be detonated on impact and hence less destructive than a detonation at height... kind of makes the rest of your post worthless when you screw up that early in your "discussion." An intentionally dirty nuke detonated over a large city can kill millions but with your caveat that it has to be detonated on impact you throw out that possibility and talk about a few hundred casualties. Yep. Lot's of condescension in my tone.

That’s right: it’s so damned easy to build an impact-detonating bomb we damned near made one accidentally.

And you know that it almost went off how? Ah, your "expert" opinion again.

Only a complete idiot would read what I wrote as saying “Yay! Let’s get bombed by the North Koreans!”

Only a complete idiot would say that we can attack a nuclear and biologically armed nation and expect to suffer only a few hundred casualties.

>> An intentionally dirty nuke detonated over a large city can kill millions <<

Ridiculous, absurd, unadulterated nonsense. You obviously not only know not one bloody thing about what you’re writing about, you’re too lazy and/or stupid to validate your own ignorant statements by looking something up on the internet.

>> And you know that it almost went off how? <<

Government documents declassified in 2013 of Parker F Jones, supervisor of nuclear weapons safety at Sandia National Labs, writing on October 22, 1969 criticizing yet concurring with the assessment by Dr. Ralph Lapp, formerly of the Manhattan Project, made in 1962:

“Lapp’s report lacks objectivity and accuracy. His sources of information are patently erroneous, or he chooses to misuse them for his own benefit. But the central point is correctly stated: one single, dynamo-technology switch stood between the United States and a major catastrophe...”

Again... this isn’t even a bomb designed to detonate on impact; this was a bomb designed to detonate in the air, which almost spontaneously detonated on the ground.

Just so you can appreciate precisely how stupid your notion that a dirty bomb could kill millions is:

“A dirty bomb (RDD) is not a weapon of mass destruction.” — Center for Disease Control.

“In 1987, in Brazil, thieves stole Caesium and distributed it throughout a local population. The effect was similar to a dirty bomb explosion. Despite the International Atomic Energy Agency calling it “one of the world’s worst radiological incidents”, only four lives were lost.”

“The primary threat of dirty bombs are not direct loss of life, but of potentially life-threatening mass panic and economic dislocation.”

“A similarly sized conventional bomb would likely be deadlier than a dirty bomb (RDD), causing death primarily through a shock wave. The chief threat of a dirty bomb would from the ensuing panic.”