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Manish_Sharma wrote:Yes to hit economically like taking out refineries, few industrial cities, ports 10-20kt would be enough. To send them back 60-70 years economically.
Manish this could be made even more effective by lacing every single bomb with say Cobalt 60 that will keep the radiation high for 10,000 years.(or whatever - I am a physicist-nuke scientist with a degree in Wiki)
The lesson should be that if you so much as threaten destroy India with your nukes, your nation is not going to have its best areas livable ever again, You can go live in the Gobi desert.
Fizzles begin to matter less and less as you make your bombs dirtier and dirtier. You send 8 kg Pu and get 40 kt but create a fine mist of 6 kg Pu that settles all over the port. Add a little Cobalt 60 flavoring to that.
Nuclear war is a dirty game. if one group claims "superiority" on the basis of megatonnage you can neutralize or reduce that superiority by playing dirty. But the production of all these things require nuclear reactors and dedicated physicists and engineers who work on them for decades.
One of the things that irritated me most on this forum was the way people just lifted up their lungis, tied them at waist level, unsheathed all weapons and started accusing the reactor people of all sorts of things. Heck if India had nobody working on reactors and making them work we would not have Pu. Leave alone fizzles. How stupid can mob mentality get? I am still rankling at two years of idiocy.
Manish this could be made even more effective by lacing every single bomb with say Cobalt 60 that will keep the radiation high for 10,000 years.(or whatever - I am a physicist-nuke scientist with a degree in Wiki) Very Funny
"Cobalt 60 that will keep the radiation high for 10,000 years" Sounds like music to ears. That would explain the ABV and co. being ok even with whatever reports of S1 sizzle/fizzle.
So this makes things more clear, China gets deterred by Dirty warheads of India and India gets deterred by Dirty Porki warheads = No nuke war.
Shiv as for your irritation with mob mentality, at least an aam aadmi with average mind can be understood. When he reads in DDM about Mig 21 as flying coffins, LCA a 26 year old failed project. It never crosses his mind to even do a little research with Googleswar Mahraj (Of course who can doubt TOI or Manoj Joshi). But then he bumps on BR and starts reading/spoonfed the realities of Mig 21 and LCA. Just like in Military Aviation thread you had to correct someone about "being pilot in IAF is the most risky profession" few weeks ago. The thing is until 2 years ago I was also believing it.
The same with this issue when somebody average mind data entry operator cum graphic designer like me reads about the reveletions of POK Test coordinator Santhanam talking of fizzle then of course you think "Sh***t, we have no deterrent against China". Of course Santhanam being insider + prejudice against Govt. organisation also compounds it. So everybody jumps onboard abusing Scientists(of a Govt. organisation), Politicians and Bureaucrats.
But like today's two posts, one of N Rao about China investing so much in Rail transportation + your 24 carat Nugget about Cobalt 60 presents a new picture. Thank you so much!
NRao wrote:Today's FT has an article on railway systems, etc - China has invested $850 Billion to revive their economy, 35% towards infrastructures and a great %age of the 35% is towards high speed rail. As an ex transportation planner I am very, very impressed. And based on this current discussion I am that much more confident that China will try her best not to launch a nuclear attack - unless she is very, very confident that her first strike will result in India not even sending a single missile back..
These are the sort of stuff that I dont understand. What does the infrastructure spending has do with anything?
Even nuclear destruction is being contemplated, there are already enough targets in China which will cause them more pain than breaking their shiny new toys.
Infrastructure spending != no tolerance for taking any hits on economic targets.
Take any P5 as example, they have lot of beautiful infrastructure and spend on it continously. Yet they expect and plan for a war whose end game may the nuclear exchange and design their deterrence around it.
Why should China be different. If anything it should be worse (since they believe in breaking and rebuilding as a method of national growth) They may even welcome damage, and use it to rebuild.
I am very glad that we are starting to discuss salted bombs because that affects us in a way that few other options do.
After setting them back 60 years with what we have, lets get ready to go back to Mohenjodaro ourselves.
But here, let's take the choice of a 20KT x 100 arsenal laced with cobalt delivered to a set of sites. The next thing I would
suggest is to take prevailing winds and construct a seasonal climatology, roughly for 10 years. Now insert a radioactive tracer, and
have it be advected by the winds assuming it is relatively inert to chemical breakdown. Ask yourself where this cobalt ends up in
1 day, 15 days, 1 month, 6 months and 1 year.
Then ask yourself, after you have delivered this cobalt, how much time before people start to peel of and what happens in the interim
to us.
If you need to do this simulation, then kindly let me know. You will see immediately why no one says they build this
as opposed to say a tactical nuke or a 3 MT "clean" TN. If there are known examples of salted bombs in the KT range
(not the dirty bomb with conventional explosive favored by terrorists, for example), please let me know.
It will be very easy, if we had this in our arsenal, for China to help
us go to war with the US. All it has to do is throw a 1KT tactical bomb at a RAMID and next thing you will find cobalt in alaska and washington of
something sent to shanghai or beijing or chengdu. hey look for korea and russia too. We may have better luck in el-nino/la-nina years.
In this ju-jitsu, it is easy to claim that hey, any micro-gigaboom should be met with everything we got, and who cares if we are rational
or may be prep-boy gone berserk is the deterrence mao's political descendants would appreciate and is what deters them. If our arsenal
does include this, then we should perhaps give a hint so that all doubts regarding our method can be laid to rest. So far, it is not clear we have
the milli-gboom going.
I also suggest that every such new imaginative scheme we come up with be run through a template of standard test scenarios that we think
are indicators of "the game" "the conflict" or the time-dependent interaction. Since this is the deterrence thread, how about we run through some
and apply what we have to them.
If our objective is to get people to think:
"Those crazy indian mofos, don't mess with em or they'll wipe the whole planet clean with salt"
would it be better to get them to think, presently:
"I think if china does this to em, china won't make it at all"
^^^ it depends upon the yield and how high it was detonated. i.e. how higher the dust was thrown into the atmosphere and how much. Reg Co-60, check RAPPCOF, Rajasthan.
Kanson wrote:^^^ it depends upon the yield and how high it was detonated. i.e. how higher the dust was thrown into the atmosphere and how much. Reg Co-60, check RAPPCOF, Rajasthan.
Sure, but you don't have to depart from the boundary layer to get it picked up in the large-scale or regional circulation (otherwise, atmospheric pollution may not be a problem) and we are talking of radioactive cobalt, right?
NRao wrote:Today's FT has an article on railway systems, etc - China has invested $850 Billion to revive their economy, 35% towards infrastructures and a great %age of the 35% is towards high speed rail. As an ex transportation planner I am very, very impressed. And based on this current discussion I am that much more confident that China will try her best not to launch a nuclear attack - unless she is very, very confident that her first strike will result in India not even sending a single missile back..
These are the sort of stuff that I dont understand. What does the infrastructure spending has do with anything?
Even nuclear destruction is being contemplated, there are already enough targets in China which will cause them more pain than breaking their shiny new toys.
Infrastructure spending != no tolerance for taking any hits on economic targets.
Take any P5 as example, they have lot of beautiful infrastructure and spend on it continously. Yet they expect and plan for a war whose end game may the nuclear exchange and design their deterrence around it.
Why should China be different. If anything it should be worse (since they believe in breaking and rebuilding as a method of national growth) They may even welcome damage, and use it to rebuild.
Sanku ji,
Very, very true.
However, one SMALL item has been left out.
Everyone of these P-5 guys FULLY expect to nuke you, but their gaming is ALWAYS geared to figuring out how they can escape form getting hit even once.
From my tea leaf reading my impression WRT India is that Indians normally act with fear in them (leaders at least), and thus tend to make very, very conservation decisions. The rest make decisions based on non-fear thinking. Again that is my read.
WRT economic infusion - that too at THAT level - shows that China is not expecting to put in all that effort and have it blown up for nothing at all. As I had mentioned even if China nails India and get s partially nailed, China as a power cannot exist. The only way China will nail India is IF India is unable to do even 1% damage within China.
They may even welcome damage, and use it to rebuild.
Rebuild what?
What will remain to "rebuild"?
IF (Big if) India can make China go from 2nd largest "power" to say the 15th position, will there be other nations that will allow China to rise (again)? Knowing very well a nuclear armed China will use her nukes? Will they allow China to be a nuclear power again?
NRao wrote:
WRT economic infusion - that too at THAT level - shows that China is not expecting to put in all that effort and have it blown up for nothing at all. As I had mentioned even if China nails India and get s partially nailed, China as a power cannot exist. The only way China will nail India is IF India is unable to do even 1% damage within China.
The thinking WRT PakiLand will be different.
NRao, let us agree to disagree. I do not think that China will not be ready to take 1% hit for 100% hit on us. When the situation gets that bad, it will be a purely civilization issue, if things are rational it will never go there.
And humans are known to be not rational.
Rebuild in the sense of rebuild any shiny toys that get lost when we nuke them, the 1% damage.
I think you disagree, but I am firmly convinced that China's pain threshold is already pretty high, and in the non rational nuclear world will be hugely higher.
The only thing that can deter a irrational person is a deep seated fear which triggers in survival flight instinct (in fight or flight)
Before going to lalla dream land and baking kiyali ladoo how India can threaten China with first nuke strike, think again. What if they call the bluff and start a border action? They are already doing limited action even today. What if they extend it on larger scale? And what if Pakis also join in? I am having trouble believing that JUST some hot and cold statements about Cobalt from Indian FM will be enough to stop them especially after 26/11 performance by MMS govt.
Since modern warheads contain only an estimated 2 to 4 kg weapon grade plutonium, the reactor grade equivalent can be as low as 5 kg.
Example/event Yield Contents Fissioned
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Hypothetical, LWR Pu 1-20 kton ~ 5-7 kg RG Pu 0.05-1 kg
Trinity test, 1945 20 kton ~ 6 kg WG Pu 1 kg
Totem I test, 1953 12 kton ~ 80% Pu-fis 0.7 kg
Hiroshima, 1945 12 kton ~ 50 kg HEU* 0.7 kg
Nagasaki, 1945 22 kton ~ 7 kg WG Pu 1.2 kg
Thermonuclear bomb ~ 1000 kton
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Per my calculations 20Kg per bum x 100 = 2000 Kg = 2 tons.
Sanku wrote:NRao, let us agree to disagree. I do not think that China will not be ready to take 1% hit for 100% hit on us. When the situation gets that bad, it will be a purely civilization issue, if things are rational it will never go there.
And humans are known to be not rational.
Rebuild in the sense of rebuild any shiny toys that get lost when we nuke them, the 1% damage.
I think you disagree, but I am firmly convinced that China's pain threshold is already pretty high, and in the non rational nuclear world will be hugely higher.
The only thing that can deter a irrational person is a deep seated fear which triggers in survival flight instinct (in fight or flight)
Unless a country is ready to take a good hit (20% damage is good?) it is not worth being a nuclear state. 1% vs 100% is dream scenario for any nuclear country. Even a non-nuclear country can inflict 1% nuke damage (by mortgaging country and borrowing nukes) for 100% hit on it.
Right. Chinese pain threshold is high. Scenarios that may cause conflict is not because country-to-country issues as Indian leadership is incapable of raising any conflict issues that can escalate to war. Scenario of conflict can happen due to foul play of third or fourth parties. Suppose they are countries U, C, P, and I and war escalation happens between U and C. U can encourage P to attack I leaving clues that C has hand in it. Then I will attack C to teach lesson then C and I are in direct conflict.
abhiti wrote:Before going to lalla dream land and baking kiyali ladoo how India can threaten China with first nuke strike, think again. What if they call the bluff and start a border action? They are already doing limited action even today. What if they extend it on larger scale? And what if Pakis also join in? I am having trouble believing that JUST some hot and cold statements about Cobalt from Indian FM will be enough to stop them especially after 26/11 performance by MMS govt.
They have been doing some action since 1960s!!!! There have been great times too (check livefist).
China has had MT level nukes since 1971.
I have brought this up at least 3-4 times before and no one has addressed it, yet posters are scared of what China is either doing at the AP border or what China may do in the future. What am I missing?
Since I brought this up - just one point on "1%" - before it gets out of hand (for sure it has been misunderstood). 1% that I mentioned is NOT related to acceptable damage. So, please let us drop that line of thinking.
This '%' game is not even funny the whole idea behind credible deterrence is to have enough nukes in one's arsenal so that there is no chance of any doubt creeping in the mind of the adversary regarding the 'assured retaliatory strike' and imo this very dilemma about the % of dammage acceptable to the adversary is faced by the policy makers too and also explains the humongous stockpile of nukes amassed by P-5.
The logic behind this is simple i.e. "we care a damn about how much % dammage is acceptable to the enemy , in fact we are gonna friggin throw the entire kitchen's sink at them".
All in all deterrence relies on 'comprehensive and assured destruction' of the enemy .
Why are you fretting? Its already made clear that scientists will step in and bolster the deterrent with its capabilty. Its only a matter of belief.
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If you read my write up about the strategic elite and nuke questions it boggles the mind. You would think all this is unreal and there is a bigger force (like the Greek theogny) moving all these play strategists around.
one can come up with these abstract defns and concrete values of assuredness and destruction of enemy, but it does not cause any deterrence value since the technolgoy that is so far demonstrated doesn't suffice to overcome the first strike.
our first line of weakness (ie political) is enough to be considered as bolstered fact or that enhances multiple folds enemy's madness hence, any of the p5 could potentially wipe us out, and still evade a second strike by anti ballistics, and anti-mirvs, yadi yada.
its required a desire for projections, and that is what BR and other discussion forums saying to GoI to proceed with certain designs and plans for the future., and at the same time there is hinderence in this freedome of desires and projections, by way massive moderations to inhibit future thoughts for deterrence to really work.
unless, GoI is planning on Gandhian Bomb, we have to consider our weakness that exists in baboodom that clearly out shadows technology, capability and preparedness of our security forces.
Can we do satyagraha on p5? to get them to accept NFU? then that is what our babooze should do. To me, there is no meaning in deterrence, if our projections have no emphatic delivery mechanism or effective warhead to say anything. Its one thing to say like in a street fight, telling touch me if you can, and see what happens, and its entirely different when you are down seeing blistering barnacles, when the person really hits you so hard.
So, it matters what you say! the deterrances should speak from our capabilities.
I look at nuke deterrence in two angles - Soft and Hard nuke deterrence.
Soft - capability, past war history, leadership
Hard - actual weapons, delivery systems, missile shield
These two are separable because of NFU. Hard deterrence deals with command and control decisions and should be binary - If there is a missile with nuke hit, press red button, else don't press it. If India dehumanized the decision-making (in other words objective binary decision), there is no degree of soft deterrence will be needed. Soft deterrence is useful for discussions, esp for BRF, diplomacy, writing theses
I assume about 17.5 KT/KG Pu @ 100% or 3.5KT/KG @ 20% I assume about 700KG of Pu Stockpile for India and 40KG of Pu production per year. These numbers may be off the mark.
~70 define the cultural centers of CN. On average each requires minimum 3 x 150KT device on average per city or a total of 9000KG Pu. The present hypothesized reserve of 700KG is good for about 120 x 20KT devices or about 6 cities and is about what I think we really have but I am not an expert and the 700 number comes from google.
This is not enough.
Either improve the capacity or efficiency or both.
If we only assume that even 25% of these major centers buys us hesitation to hedge, that will need 250KG of Pu per year for 10 years, which is about 6 times our present capacity. We need to increase our power production to about 1,250MW to produce that, roughly at 5MW/KG/year. Why have we not done that? And ideally, yes, 8000MW of power a year must be nuclear delivering sufficient Pu for strategic needs. We can then roll in over a period of 10 years. Where were we not aggressive about the 3-stage and what stopped us. There may be other considerations, such as higher efficiency systems, that can increase the efficiency of Pu utilization and thus drop this number, possibly by factors of 2-4 (in the future). These must be investigated promptly.
Our present deterrence has been Pak centric. To guarantee MAD or equivalent and the ability for standoff at most scales, we need to deal with Chipak and that is different altogether.
These are staggering numbers. The cause headache just thinking about them and the sheer destruction this will bring. However, when we wish to ensure that the second-strike is nearly total, we have a long way to go. If our second strike is not near total, we have the distinct possibility of being totalled. The irony is, we don't have a demonstrated 150KT device, let alone 300KT. We don't have a demonstrated TN of any confidence. That's the irony here. Against these staggering strategic needs, we are defending the indefensible.
We could've reached these goals had we worked diligently during the last few decades and not relied on the soviets to help our chinese back. Presently, unless there is a radical rethink in our policy circles, we will never reach the capacity that China has to blow us to smithereens. In that sense, it is China's will to take on damage that we hang our hopes of deterring on, not our ability to give it at will. If that is true, why not hand it what it is asking for and get on with spending money on better imported reactors to feed our people? May be that is what we are doing after all, but we should not be surprised if the ordinary babloo to whom these advantages are supposed to delivered gets ticked off at what we did not do.
ramana wrote:Why are you fretting? Its already made clear that scientists will step in and bolster the deterrent with its capabilty. Its only a matter of belief.
Ramana garu I merely posted what 'according' to me is typical of a P-5 member as far as deterrence posture is concerned.Words like 'Minimum Credible' , 'No first use' are typical of India's posture something perfectly in line with our policy making since independence.
If you read my write up about the strategic elite and nuke questions it boggles the mind. You would think all this is unreal and there is a bigger force (like the Greek theogny) moving all these play strategists around.
Yes I did read your post on the 'three groups' ,however I would beg to differ about the 'consensus' theory ; Imo the decision making wrt strategic issues has always been TOP DOWN where the other groups have merely followed the orders in spirit.
A country that went nuclear for the first time in 1974 under Mrs. Gandhi dared to take the next step only 24 years (by this time even TSP had caught up with us) later ;it shows the kind of priority and seriousness with which the entire programme was pursued by post IG regimes (specially by the GOI) , specially by a country that had been witness to 3 wars since independence , rapid militarization of PRC and Unkil's open support for the TSP during 1971 conflict .
And oh yes I don't see how India's economy had overnight become robust and immune to external forces on the fateful day of 18th May 1974 only to return to its vulnerable self until POK-II ; the only significant point of difference which comes to my mind is the kind of priority given to the programme by the various governments at the center (other factors like TSP,PRC,economic vulnerability yada yada have more or less remained unchanged since 1947).
In case people were asleep may I point out the one and only consensus that India has - and that is human development of its people who, on average (on average) are among the most deprived people in the world. There is a genuine consensus do develop India with the goal of development being that "India will be developed when the lifestyle of rural India matches that of urban India"
This is the fundamental consensus that India works on. Forgetting this general agreement in India is a formula for GIGO.
~70 define the cultural centers of CN. On average each requires minimum 3 x 150KT device on average per city or a total of 9000KG Pu.
S
Could I ask you to flesh out the reasons why you are selecting 3 x 150 kt per city. As you have yourself pointed out the damage will be miniscule and the discussion could be whether we want 20% more damage or 20% less - given that the level of "adequate" damage is being guessed separately by you and me and others .
Any error you make in assessing the damage required per city propagates to a huge amount of Pu.
What rationale do you use for the 150 kt x 3 figure.
Note that I am not necessarily disagreeing - but seeking clarification about your thought process regarding "what is enough"
ss_roy wrote:A well designed 2-stage TN with a depleted uranium, cobalt or gold tamper would create a lot of fallout.
Chanelling Dr. Strangelove..
Gawrsh! What philanthropy!
But when you have a really kind and gentle heart you can think of many ways to skin a cat even if you are using stone age tools.
People in any country live in places that are habitable. That is why you find higher populations in fertile plains, near rivers and ports rather than in mountains and deserts.
In theory if you have an entire region of a country that has 6 major cities , 14 medium cities and 40 towns one of the philanthropic ideas one might get s how to move 10% of the population out of the biggest cities to the smaller cities and towns creating a refugee crisis, overloading of roads and other organizational events.
Assume that a region has 100 million people and the 6 major cities account for more than 10% of that total (> 10 million)
Now how to go about encouraging people to move from those 6 major cities to the other areas. The idea is to choke the receiver cities with people, choke the roads and infrastructure and choke the entry points for relief efforts.
A "salted" nuclear weapon is reminiscent of fission-fusion-fission weapons, but instead of a fissionable jacket around the secondary stage fusion fuel, a non-fissionable blanket of a specially chosen salting isotope is used (cobalt-59 in the case of the cobalt bomb). This blanket captures the escaping fusion neutrons to breed a radioactive isotope that maximizes the fallout hazard from the weapon rather than generating additional explosive force (and dangerous fission fallout) from fast fission of U-238. Variable fallout effects can be obtained by using different salting isotopes. Gold has been proposed for short-term fallout (days), tantalum and zinc for fallout of intermediate duration (months), and cobalt for long term contamination (years). To be useful for salting, the parent isotopes must be abundant in the natural element, and the neutron-bred radioactive product must be a strong emitter of penetrating gamma rays.
Table 1.6-1 Candidate Salting Agents
Cobalt-59 100% Co-60 5.26 years
Gold-197 100% Au-198 2.697 days
Tantalum-181 99.99% Ta-182 115 days
Zinc-64 48.89% Zn-65 244 days
The idea of the cobalt bomb originated with Leo Szilard who publicized it in Feb. 1950, not as a serious proposal for weapon, but to point out that it would soon be possible in principle to build a weapon that could kill everybody on earth (see Doomsday Device in Questions and Answers). To design such a theoretical weapon a radioactive isotope is needed that can be dispersed world wide before it decays. Such dispersal takes many months to a few years so the half-life of Co-60 is ideal.
The Co-60 fallout hazard is greater than the fission products from a U-238 blanket because many fission-produced isotopes have half-lives that are very short, and thus decay before the fallout settles or can be protected against by short-term sheltering; many fission-produced isotopes have very long half-lives and thus do not produce very intense radiation; the fission products are not radioactive at all. The half-life of Co-60 on the other hand is long enough to settle out before significant decay has occurred, and to make it impractical to wait out in shelters, yet is short enough that intense radiation is produced.
nukavarapu wrote:
Either ppl can bad mouth me or be constructive and provide me suggestions of why my theory is bad and what else can be improved!
nukavarapu - this is a difficult subject and nothing you have said is "wrong". So don't let the absence of responses hamper your ability to pen down your thoughts and share. The most difficult things to respond to are the things that are difficult to dispute.
India’s nuclear warhead options are still relatively limited, though adequate. Since the first Peaceful Nuclear Explosion (PNE) in 1974 (PoK-I), India adopted the recessed deterrence posture initially consisting of fission weapons (~15 KT yield) followed by boosted fission weapons of 200 KT yield, suitable for the Agni-TD/TTB. The PoK-II 1998 ‘Shakti’ series of nuclear tests in Pokhran were reportedly done to validate multiple weapon designs, of 1995 vintage. Interestingly the 200 KT boosted fission design of 1980 was not tested in PoK-II, evidently its core components and technologies were validated in newer designs, and giving way to a lighter and more efficient S1 design. It is interesting to note that India has access to large quantities[135] of Tritium - produced at an extremely low cost - which lends flexibility to Indian weapon design options, an option that is not available or viable to prior nuclear weapon states.
The primary warhead for the Agni family would be a 200-300 Kt fusion weapon based on the Shakti-1 (Pokhran-II) test in 1998. The weapons yield is adjustable from 45-300Kt by changing the amount and quality of tertiary fuel. Yield of 45-200Kt range using natural Uranium and 45-300Kt range using moderately enriched fuel (U235 or Pu).
The fusion weapon based on the S-1 design reportedly weighs less than 450 Kg, however other sources indicate a mass of between 300 to 200 Kg[137A]. The 45kT S1 device reportedly weighed 450 kg and used an inert mantle to ensure third stage did not generate any yield[141]. It has also emerged that by 1982, the BARC/DRDO team had produced a design for a (pure) fission device that weighed between 170 and 200 kg for a yield of 15 KT - a huge change from the 1000 kg monster tested in 1974[142]. This would mean that a missile warhead based on this 1982 vintage design would weigh some 250 - 350 kg. On the eve of Agni-III D1 test flight on 12 April 2007, Union Minister of State for Defence MM Pallam Raju confirmed that “the strategic payload of the missile is between 100 kg to 250 kg”[142a]. One can conservatively deduce that the 250 kg mentioned by the minister corresponded to Indian Thermo-nuclear weapon, and 100Kg correspond to either 20Kt medium yield boosted fission weapon because low yield sub-KT weapon are tactical & not considered as strategic weapons. Therefore, when considering the range and payload parameters of the Agni and Prithvi missiles, these figures must be borne in mind.
A "salted" nuclear weapon is reminiscent of fission-fusion-fission weapons, but instead of a fissionable jacket around the secondary stage fusion fuel, a non-fissionable blanket of a specially chosen salting isotope is used (cobalt-59 in the case of the cobalt bomb). This blanket captures the escaping fusion neutrons to breed a radioactive isotope that maximizes the fallout hazard from the weapon rather than generating additional explosive force (and dangerous fission fallout) from fast fission of U-238. Variable fallout effects can be obtained by using different salting isotopes. Gold has been proposed for short-term fallout (days), tantalum and zinc for fallout of intermediate duration (months), and cobalt for long term contamination (years). To be useful for salting, the parent isotopes must be abundant in the natural element, and the neutron-bred radioactive product must be a strong emitter of penetrating gamma rays.
Table 1.6-1 Candidate Salting Agents
Cobalt-59 100% Co-60 5.26 years
Gold-197 100% Au-198 2.697 days
Tantalum-181 99.99% Ta-182 115 days
Zinc-64 48.89% Zn-65 244 days
The idea of the cobalt bomb originated with Leo Szilard who publicized it in Feb. 1950, not as a serious proposal for weapon, but to point out that it would soon be possible in principle to build a weapon that could kill everybody on earth (see Doomsday Device in Questions and Answers). To design such a theoretical weapon a radioactive isotope is needed that can be dispersed world wide before it decays. Such dispersal takes many months to a few years so the half-life of Co-60 is ideal.
The Co-60 fallout hazard is greater than the fission products from a U-238 blanket because many fission-produced isotopes have half-lives that are very short, and thus decay before the fallout settles or can be protected against by short-term sheltering; many fission-produced isotopes have very long half-lives and thus do not produce very intense radiation; the fission products are not radioactive at all. The half-life of Co-60 on the other hand is long enough to settle out before significant decay has occurred, and to make it impractical to wait out in shelters, yet is short enough that intense radiation is produced.
Charming stuff. But a point to note is that all the fallout is created by the neutrons of fusion. To produce those neutrons and the fallout products - fusion is necessary. The amount of fusion dictates the number of fusion neutrons (This was my thesis subject in Wiki). As was pointed out earlier the Russians have actually produced fusion using conventional explosive alone and managed to produce a yield of 67 milligrams of TNT from fusion by exploding many kgs of TNT or something That is (seriously) 0.000000000067 kilotons. So we will need more fusion than that.
However the Al Qaeda design would be to use 6 kg Plutonium in a bomb where only 0.5 kt actually produces a bang, spreading 5.5 kg Pu all over. Only problem is it will cause radiation damage over time and produce mutants - creating Pakistanis out of exposed residents.
I think GOI-BR subcontracted the job to TOI. Soon you'll have tabloid articles like:
Does newly developed condom by GOI fit into Prithvi?
Which girl is sexy - Bipasa, Randheer, Agni-3?
Goverment is happy that they can produce more Prithvis by mating Surya and Agni-2
This Cobalt 60 sounds like an answer to all the troubles of India. Pure Bramhastra. If a nuked India manages to send warheads across himalayas and spread radioactivity not only in chipanda land but lets the existence decide where to carry it next Unkil, Airope then its as fair as it gets. Not only chinese die a slow radioactive death but those who prevented/pressured india into not testing and creating proper TNs, those with their tushtikaran nitees towards prc + tsp proliferation also get proper prasadam.
1. This way no need to test more for TNs and invite sanctions.
2. I think Himalayas will not let the air carry this stuff back to India from China.
3. India gets its Minimum Credible Deterrent with MAXIMUM RESULTS!
I hope no one comes and shakes me out of this wishful thinking!
[quote="nukavarapu
We are developing HSTDV (AVATAR) as a hypersonic bomber, we can develop it to yeild 4 Brahmos2 hypersonic missiles configured in air-to-air mode:
what it will do? HSTDV being hypersonic, the altitude requirement and speed is so high that no present day SAM can intercept it. If it is configured for long endurance, it can keep hovering in the hostile skies, and launch missiles to intercept ballistic missiles in boost phase.
why brahmos2? Being hypersonic missile, the time taken to intercept will be very little, allowing it to intercept.
I would really appreciate any suggestions to my view! Well this was part of the shield theory i have, not the entire theory. I know jingos will ask how we can make brahmos2 to work in air-to-air mode, and that to intercepting ballistic missile in boost mode. Well, let me reiterate, my claim was never that we have it ready. My claim was if we change our POV, we ve a realistic solution pretty much in grabs!
Either ppl can bad mouth me or be constructive and provide me suggestions of why my theory is bad and what else can be improved![/quote]
Doc here dont belive in AVATAR when i told him it can carry many thuderbolts to help Chic Fried dish.
Lets ask Doc here, 2 Squaradons working 24 hr as Dwararpals to stop and keep Raqshaks and Jinns at bay by brandishing their Brahmastras distributed with Cobalt Prasad .
shiv wrote:In case people were asleep may I point out the one and only consensus that India has - and that is human development of its people who, on average (on average) are among the most deprived people in the world. There is a genuine consensus do develop India with the goal of development being that "India will be developed when the lifestyle of rural India matches that of urban India" This is the fundamental consensus that India works on. Forgetting this general agreement in India is a formula for GIGO.
And what has deterrence specifically have to do with human development? I can understand the pov that defence spending in general is related to development but why just deterrence?
NRao wrote:They have been doing some action since 1960s!!!! There have been great times too (check livefist). China has had MT level nukes since 1971. I have brought this up at least 3-4 times before and no one has addressed it, yet posters are scared of what China is either doing at the AP border or what China may do in the future. What am I missing?
Where do I start, let's see...how about end of cold war and disintegration of USSR? How about America no longer being preoccupied with communist threat? How about China gaining economic muscle? How about logistic improvement in Tibet? How about Pak having a nuke bomb? How about 26/11? How about China gaining military muscle?
shiv wrote:Now how to go about encouraging people to move from those 6 major cities to the other areas. The idea is to choke the receiver cities with people, choke the roads and infrastructure and choke the entry points for relief efforts.
And what kind of flowers do we get in response? Will it be six cities or hundred?
Prem wrote:Lets ask Doc here, 2 Squaradons working 24 hr as Dwararpals to stop and keep Raqshaks and Jinns at bay by brandishing their Brahmastras distributed with Cobalt Prasad .
Prem I think Co prasad per se is not available in huge quantities and really must be generated as roy's post says.
But then again who is to prevent irradiation of things in reactors - but this is territory not covered by my Wiki diploma.
Personally I prefer Gold-197 (the only natural gold isotope) as a tamper. The radiation from such the fallout of a weapon will be truly horrifying.
Gold-198 may be short-lived, but it releases in 2.5 days what cobalt-60 will release over 5.5 years! Considering the infrastructure and density of chinese cities, the results will be spectacular.
Gawrsh! What philanthropy!
That is (seriously) 0.000000000067 kilotons. So we will need more fusion than that.