POISON GAS PLOT

New York Post ^ | 4/27/04 | ANDY GELLER

[gonzo]

"...You are under the influence of misinformation, and are continuing to spread it..."

Hey Phys, I'm not talkin' Neutron Bombs - I'm talkin' Whackem-Smackem bangers with a half-life of two weeks.

I wouldn't want to poison something valuable for 1200 years...........FRegards

[gonzo]

Hey Peach! Long time! Stay well.................FRegards

[gonzo]

Well, it sure got interesting, guys! I lost all my maps of the Middle East oil fields in my last crash, but I remember that the prime producers were away from the population centers where the bad-guys live and build bombs.

"...Outside the holy city of Najaf..."

I'm sick-and-tired of this 'holy-city-shit'! These animals bomb Synagogues and Churchs and Pizza parlors.

Blow them all to hell. ...............FRegards 2 posted on 04/27/2004 4:56:48 AM EDT by gonzo

muawiyah, and Bob Ireland, at the risk of being a Christian, I will say that these Islamaniacs (animals) are determined to destroy Christianity and Civilization as we enjoy it.

We're not perfect, but we're trying to be better, and as I recall, there is nothing in our Scriptures that tells us how to properly beat our women, or to properly screw our goats! I read the koran - it's disgusting! Vomitus-Maximus!

I guess it's / rant. Stay well, y'all...................FRegards

[bitt]

Hey Phys, I'm not talkin' Neutron Bombs - I'm talkin' Whackem-Smackem bangers with a half-life of two weeks

what bombs have a half-life of 2 weeks? I thought all nuke/hydrogen bombs were like 99 years half-life?

[AFPhys]

Re: Neutron bombs...

I am a physicist. I was in SAC (Strategic Air Command) years ago. I am NOT a weapons scientist of any stripe. I do NOT know anything classified, but I do know common-sense physics and engineering.

That being said, once upon a time, I did look into the "neutron bomb", I believe weapons scientists call them "enhanced radiation weapons", situation. I made an attempt to figure out from the non-classified data and my own expertise the radiation vs. damage situation. I'm gonna use ERW for "neutron bomb"...

My "best guess" is that the much talked about ERW does about the same amount of physical damage that a non-ERW about a quarter as powerful does. Even for small nuclear weapons (<5kTon), that is quite a wallop in physical damage, ERW or non-ERW. My guess is that the most likely range for ERWs is in the 20-100kT range, and that much smaller than that they are very difficult to construct. We're still talking Hiroshima-type physical damage here. The US appears to have technology to build non-ERWs in the range of about 0.3kT to over 10MT, so we have quite a choice of what to stock in our arsenal. Most of our strategic weapons appear to be about 300kT since larger weapons simply pound dirt deeper into the ground or blow the air higher rather than doing damage to the enemy. It is much more effective to use three 300kTs than one 10Mt weapon. I've no guess on how big our tactical weapons are better than "under 10kT".

I found NO evidence or science that suggests there is even close to the technology of a "little physical damage" ERW; only dreams and idle speculation that such could exist. Real ERWs do a great deal of physical damage.

I suspect that the "fallout" is much more dependent on the casings and mechanical components of the weapon, and on how much it sucks up into the atmosphere, than on whether or not it is ERW. There are many components of fallout which have various radiation half-lifes. It is not possible for me to guess the duration an area is dangerous, and in what way it is dangerous (fatal on brief protected excursions vs. living there permanently vs. using the land for agriculture, etc.) because there are just too many considerations. I do not believe that the "fatal on brief" is more than a year duration in any case regardless of how "big and dirty" a bomb is (unless you're talking including components specifically placed in that bomb to render the earth incompatible with life, and then I have no guess). Much US research has concentrated on how to reduce the long-lived radiation component of our using nukes.

(as an aside, the "nuclear winter" garbage is just that, and no real scientist has ever accepted such ridiculous scenerios that my peacenik friend and good astronomer Sagan dreamed up)

Neutron radiation would indeed penetrate tanks and such, and over a period of days kill the enemy inside. The US has apparently war-gamed this and decided that having a bunch of guys who were hit by ERWs driving around in their tanks knowing they were "walking dead men" is a bad situation. I guess we have decided to deploy weapons that kill and destroy with blast damage ASAP to minimize this factor. We have therefore (apparently) decided that we will not deploy such tactical weapons, even if we could build small ERWs.

All this appears to me to reduce the question as to whether you really care about the difference when you are talking about using a Hiroshima-type damage ERW. Yes, your 80kT ERW will only damage the area as much as Hiroshima and kill more people outside the blast area, but how big a consideration is that really?

[R. Scott]

It wasn’t a “Death Ray” type of weapon?
We were led to believe we could blanket the major cities of the Eastern Block, wait a few days and walk in and take over - all buildings intact, all people and other critters dead!
Oh well, so much for that.

[AFPhys]

I have no idea where that concept came from.

I can tell you there is no physics I know of or engineering concepts I have been able to discover or knowledgeable unclassified discussion of any such "Death-Ray" weapon.

I've posted similar responses to people in the past five or so years, and have never gotten further information, although I have elicited much corroborating information. Like "nuclear winter", the "no-damage neutron bomb" appears to be strictly the result of projecting a headline read by an imaginative fiction writer into a full-blown story based on that headline.

[AFPhys]

Ahh... should have read a bit more between the lines of your post.

I suspect that, similar to the arguments against SDI, the were a great many peaceniks who spread the drivel about "neutron bombs". They maintained fear of such a weapon since it would "encourage the use" of such a weapon by the military planners. This dynamic may have "spread the word" of its existence in an attempt to disarm the US of nuclear weaponry.

Again, my best cut at this is that someone used the short-hand term "neutron bomb" when they were talking about the existence of Enhanced Radiation Weapons, which DO enhance neutron radiation, and they expanded that into a fictional work. All I've ever seen or studied about this subject is consistent with that interpretation.

[R. Scott]

I wonder if we will ever have journalists familiar with any field other than journalism.