I’d say go for it, even with Putin’s threat of nukes.
With how much Russia’s oligarchy plundered their own war-chest over the years, to the point where they had to rely on Iran for weapons, I actually question if any of Russia’s nukes actually work.
They do expire. Problem is that there’s a lot of them. Fire 100 nukes, and even if 99% fail, that’s at least one mushroom cloud in the most fertile land on earth. And the ones that did expire become essentially dirty bombs.
That’s pretty much why I was asking, I figured that no level of neglect would make one of these not dangerous. Which also makes it pretty clear that someone who’s so comfortable with their use is likely confident that they would not be victims of that use.
Neglect measured on the scale of centuries might make them effectively safe…you need to have all the conventional explosives in the implosion shell fail to explode. If some of them fail, you likely won’t reach criticality in the warhead itself, in which case you just detonated a regular bomb that had enriched uranium shrapnel.
That being said, most modern explosives become less stable and more sensitive over time, not inert. So the implosion timing is gonna be off, which means no criticality. Just spreading radioactive material.
Umm. Not really? I’m kinda pulling together basic implosion-type nuke design, where you have a nuclear core surrounded by conventional shaped charges that are supposed to detonate and compress the nuclear core just prior to the nuclear reaction.
As you would expect, most governments are a bit touchy on details about military explosives that they use…I just happen to have done a decent amount of explosives R&D in the past. Picked up a few things.
I’d say go for it, even with Putin’s threat of nukes.
With how much Russia’s oligarchy plundered their own war-chest over the years, to the point where they had to rely on Iran for weapons, I actually question if any of Russia’s nukes actually work.
Uh, maybe I’m unfamiliar with the engineering behind nukes. Do they expire? Or are you joking that they’ve just stripped the parts?
They do expire. Problem is that there’s a lot of them. Fire 100 nukes, and even if 99% fail, that’s at least one mushroom cloud in the most fertile land on earth. And the ones that did expire become essentially dirty bombs.
That’s pretty much why I was asking, I figured that no level of neglect would make one of these not dangerous. Which also makes it pretty clear that someone who’s so comfortable with their use is likely confident that they would not be victims of that use.
Neglect measured on the scale of centuries might make them effectively safe…you need to have all the conventional explosives in the implosion shell fail to explode. If some of them fail, you likely won’t reach criticality in the warhead itself, in which case you just detonated a regular bomb that had enriched uranium shrapnel.
That being said, most modern explosives become less stable and more sensitive over time, not inert. So the implosion timing is gonna be off, which means no criticality. Just spreading radioactive material.
Do you have a source to read further on this at all?
Umm. Not really? I’m kinda pulling together basic implosion-type nuke design, where you have a nuclear core surrounded by conventional shaped charges that are supposed to detonate and compress the nuclear core just prior to the nuclear reaction.
As you would expect, most governments are a bit touchy on details about military explosives that they use…I just happen to have done a decent amount of explosives R&D in the past. Picked up a few things.
I wonder if dead hand* is even real at this point lol