THE THINGS WHICH FOLLOW: PART A
"What? You think this is a community. It's a bunch of people drawn together by lies."
Citizen on Loch Ness
In the British Acorn TV television show Loch Ness, the presence of the monster myth lingers under the storyline, always in the background of everyone's story. Three teens gather a collection of animal parts from the local rendering works and put together a mock dead monster to get publicity for themselves and undermine the power of the myth. One policemen clearing up the mess the next morning discovers what looks like a human heart in the middle of the reeking pile of guts and bone. It forms a ploit connection with the "cold bloody" monster killer in Series One of the show, but it underlines something else: in the middle of every myth lies a cold dead human heart, the heart of the unsaved, striving to attain life.
We all want to be alive. And that is one of the deep secrets of all our searching through all the myths and comic book heroes and every idol ever built. We are all born dead. Our spirits cry for life. But we can't see the truth of Christ unless we let the Spirit stir us to real life. Our zombie minds demand a dead god we can worship, one we can invest with our own power. As another Loch Ness character says: "It's all about power and control."
Meanwhile, in Loch Ness, the local officials try to suppress all the evidence in the murders for their own reasons even as the myth users feed the myths to build their power. The way so many throughout the world have done over the centuries. Many even treating the reality of Christ as a myth for their own purposes whether they be academic or political. Treating even the true God as a falsehood.
And then there are the ones who want to assume His mantle: all those antichrists across history.
The seal of warfare opens after the AC is revealed in his treaty. Warfare that can be worldwide in a heartbeat,
http://submarinewarriors.com/facts/
Trident Submarines
Named for the 24, Trident II Submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) they carry, the Ohio-class submarines were designed specifically for extended war-deterrence patrols. Each of these submarines are provided with two complete crews, called the Blue crew and the Gold crew, with each crew serving typically on 70 to 90 day deterrent patrols.
Trident Submarine
Ballistic missile submarines have been of great strategic importance to the United States and other nuclear powers since the start of the Cold War, as they can hide from reconnaissance satellites and fire their nuclear weapons with virtual impunity. This makes them immune to a first strike directed against nuclear forces, allowing each side to maintain the capability to launch a devastating retaliatory strike, even if all land-based missiles have been destroyed.
Trident II Missiles
These missiles launch from underwater in a vertical missile tube inside the submarine. They rapidly ascend to the surface inside a gas bubble. Flying out of the ocean, internal gyros let the missile know when it’s beginning to fall back towards the water. This triggers the rockets to fire sending the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile thousands of miles towards its target.
They typically deliver multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs), each of which carries a nuclear warhead and allows a single launched missile to strike several targets.
North korea has submarines of its own:
http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/25/asia/north-korea-submarine-technology/index.html
What if North Korea's missiles come from underwater?
By Joshua Berlinger, CNN
Updated 4:25 AM ET, Mon September 26, 2016
Moment North Korea fired missile over Japan
A military vehicle carries what is believed to be a Taepodong-class missile Intermediary Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM), about 20 meters long, during a military parade to mark the 100 birth of the country's founder Kim Il-Sung in Pyongyang on April 15, 2012. The commemorations came just two days after a satellite launch timed to mark the centenary fizzled out embarrassingly when the rocket apparently exploded within minutes of blastoff and plunged into the sea. AFP PHOTO / PEDRO UGARTE (Photo credit should read PEDRO UGARTE/AFP/Getty Images)
How far can a North Korean missile reach?
south korea plans for kim jong un hancocks lklv_00011708.jpg
N. Korea threatens to wipe out Seoul
A U.S. Air Force B-1B Lancer, assigned to the 37th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron, deployed from Ellsworth Air Force Base, South Dakota, prepares to take off from Andersen AFB, Guam, Sept. 23, 2017. This mission was flown as part of the continuing demonstration of the ironclad U.S. commitment to the defense of its homeland and in support of its partners and allies.
Moment North Korea fired missile over Japan
A military vehicle carries what is believed to be a Taepodong-class missile Intermediary Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM), about 20 meters long, during a military parade to mark the 100 birth of the country's founder Kim Il-Sung in Pyongyang on April 15, 2012. The commemorations came just two days after a satellite launch timed to mark the centenary fizzled out embarrassingly when the rocket apparently exploded within minutes of blastoff and plunged into the sea. AFP PHOTO / PEDRO UGARTE (Photo credit should read PEDRO UGARTE/AFP/Getty Images)
How far can a North Korean missile reach?
North Korea tested submarine-launched missile in late August.
It introduces a "new dynamic into the threat matrix on the Korean peninsula," expert says.
Hong Kong (CNN)The US and South Korean navies took to the seas Monday with a message for North Korea: Think twice before you threaten us.
This so-called "show of force" comes during the same month in which North Korea conducted its fifth nuclear test just days after successfully launching three missiles into the Sea of Japan.
The North, for its part, claims it tested a nuclear warhead -- which can be placed on top of a missile -- though there is no way to verify that claim.
And the possibility of pairing a nuclear warhead with a missile is all the more frightening when you consider the country has also been testing how to launch missiles underwater, where they're harder to detect.
"The question that some experts are raising is whether or not the North Koreans can actually mate a miniaturized nuclear warhead onto such a missile," Alexander Neill, a North Korea expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies Asia," told CNN.
"If there's evidence that they can do that -- or they have done that -- than this is major concern for the region."
Those tests come just after North Korea had what many experts believe to be its first successful submarine missile launch in August.
"While this was a substantial improvement in North Korea's demonstrated capabilities, it does not likely represent an operational submarine launched ballistic missile capability at this time," John Schilling, an aerospace engineer and contributor to the North Korea monitoring project 38 North, told CNN in an email after the sub missile launch.
The missile traveled 311 miles (500 kilometers) -- and was the first projectile ever fired by the North Koreans to reach Japan's air defense identification zone, according to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
The Gorae submarine is largely shrouded in mystery -- it's not clear if the North Koreans are planning to use it as an experimental vehicle or whether it will be replicated and reproduced, Jane's says.
And the test itself was an audacious and risky move, Schilling says.
"Testing from a submarine shows great confidence from the North Koreans, almost recklessly so," he said.
"The solid-fuel KN-11 is basically a new design, and North Korean missiles almost never work right on their first try. They took a big risk of damaging or sinking their only ballistic missile submarine, something we wouldn't have expected this soon, and it paid off for them (this time). "
The rest of North Korea's fleet is mostly older, Soviet-era submarine equipment.
The country has about 70 submarines in its fleet, according to various independent estimates.
And those subs are louder and easier to detect, according to Neill.
Some of them are older, Soviet-era pieces of equipment, while others were transferred from China in the 1970s.
And, deployed with that missile launching sub is an aircraft carrier:
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/five-reasons-us-aircraft-carriers-are-nearly-impossible-sink-17318
The vulnerability issue is harder to address because putting 5,000 sailors and six dozen high-performance aircraft on a $10 billion warship creates what military experts refer to as a very "lucrative" target. Taking one out would be a big achievement for America's enemies, and a big setback for America's military. However, the likelihood of any adversary actually achieving that without using nuclear weapons is pretty close to zero. It isn't going to happen, and here are five big reasons why.
Large-deck carriers are fast and resilient. Nimitz-class carriers of the type that dominate the current fleet, like the Ford-class carriers that will replace them, are the biggest warships ever built. They have 25 decks standing 250 feet in height, and displace 100,000 tons of water. With hundreds of watertight compartments and thousands of tons of armor, no conventional torpedo or mine is likely to cause serious damage. And because carriers are constantly moving when deployed at up to 35 miles per hour -- fast enough to outrun submarines -- finding and tracking them is difficult. Within 30 minutes after a sighting by enemies, the area within which a carrier might be operating has grown to 700 square miles; after 90 minutes, it has expanded to 6,000 square miles.
Carrier defenses are formidable. U.S. aircraft carriers are equipped with extensive active and passive defenses for defeating threats such as low-flying cruise missiles and hostile submarines. These include an array of high-performance sensors, radar-guided missiles and 20 mm Gatling guns that shoot 50 rounds per second. The carrier air wing of 60+ aircraft includes a squadron of early-warning radar planes that can detect approaching threats (including radar periscopes) over vast distances and helicopters equipped for anti-submarine, anti-surface and counter-mine warfare. All of the carrier's defensive sensors and weapons are netted together through an on-board command center for coordinated action against adversaries.
Carriers do not operate alone. Carriers typically deploy as part of a "carrier strike group" that includes multiple guided-missile warships equipped with the Aegis combat system. Aegis is the most advanced air and missile defense system in the world, capable of defeating every potential overhead threat including ballistic missiles. It is linked to other offensive and defensive systems on board U.S. surface combatants that can defeat submarines, surface ships and floating mines, or attack enemy sensors needed to guide attacking missiles. In combination with the carrier air wing, these warships can quickly degrade enemy systems used to track the strike group. Carrier strike groups often include one or more stealthy attack subs capable of defeating undersea and surface threats.
Navy tactics maximize survivability. Although U.S. aircraft carriers are protected by the most potent, multi-layered defensive shield ever conceived, they do not take chances when deployed near potential adversaries. Their operational tactics have evolved to minimize risk while still delivering the offensive punch that is their main reason for existing. For instance, a carrier will generally not operate in areas where mines might have been laid until the area has been thoroughly cleared. It will tend to stay in the open ocean rather than entering confined areas where approaching threats are hard to sort out from other local traffic. It will keep moving to complicate the targeting challenge for enemies. It will also use links to other joint assets from the seabed to low-earth orbit to achieve detailed situational awareness.
Note: the US keeps three of these systems operating on the seas at all times. Literally, there are three cities floating on the ocean designed to wage war with nuclear fueled operating systems that don't need to land for any reason beyond supplies and surrounded by a ring of protection and death dealing power.
Do you begin to see the potential for destruction just by some of the US force in one location? Do you see the way we have kept it reined in for years? Do you see from last time the difficulty in using that force specifically in the North korean situation without triggering a Chinese involvement?
Now add this factor:
http://www.businessinsider.com/north-korean-workers-in-russia-2017-10
President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that around 40,000 North Korean citizens were currently working in Russia.
Such workers are known to regularly send back part of their wages to the North Korean authorities.
Putin, speaking at an energy forum, said Moscow was concerned about rising tensions between Pyongyang and the West over North Korea’s nuclear and missile program because it shared a border with the country.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/11/world/europe/north-korea-russia-migrants.html
VLADIVOSTOK, Russia — Across Western Europe and the United States, immigrants from poorer countries, whether plumbers from Poland or farmhands from Mexico, have become a lightning rod for economic anxieties over cheap labor.
The Russian city of Vladivostok on the Pacific Ocean, however, has eagerly embraced a new icon of border-crushing globalization: the North Korean painter.
Unlike migrant workers in much of the West, destitute decorators from North Korea are so welcome that they have helped make Russia at least the equal of China — Pyongyang’s main backer — as the world’s biggest user of labor from the impoverished yet nuclear-armed country.
“They are fast, cheap and very reliable, much better than Russian workers,” Yulia Kravchenko, a 32-year-old Vladivostok homemaker, said of the painters. “They do nothing but work from morning until late at night.”
The work habits that delight Vladivostok homeowners are also generating sorely needed cash for the world’s most isolated regime, a hereditary dictatorship in Pyongyang closing in on a nuclear weapon capable of hitting the United States. Just last week, the North reached a milestone by testing its first intercontinental ballistic missile.
Yes, there is also a Russian border. And a lot of water that mixes with the Pacific. And a lot of fresh water rivers that feed into it.
So the capacity of a fleet to attack becomes more important as well as defending against it.
Dave Majumdar
October 25, 2016
Faced with growing challenges to its domination of the world’s oceans, the United States Navy is once again focusing its efforts on gaining and maintaining control of the seas.
Since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, the U.S. Navy’s mastery of the seas has been unchallenged by any other power. Without a rival, the U.S. Navy focused the efforts of its surface fleet on power projection and defending its aircraft carriers—with the overwhelming majority of the service’s offensive firepower increasingly concentrated in the air wing. However, with great power competitors such as Russia and China increasingly developing surface warfare capabilities that might one day challenge the U.S. Navy’s dominance of the waves, the service is returning to its core mission of sea control.
“Our Navy controls the sea for the benefit of our nation and for the benefit of our allies,” Vice Adm. Tom Rowden, commander, Naval Surface Forces, told The National Interest during an Oct. 25 interview. “So how do we get after that in the surface warfare community?”
Rowden’s answer is a concept called distributed lethality, which he developed while serving as the Navy’s director of surface warfare (N96) in the Pentagon. “As I reviewed the requirements for our surface ships, we had a tendency to move away from offensive capability—or what I would refer to as sea control capability—to more defensive capability, which is defending those power projection assets. And I think that was a natural evolution that we executed in the wake of the Cold War in the wake of the wars that we were involved in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
To achieve the Navy’s goals, the service will not only have to invest in upgraded hardware, but also on improved training and tactics. Additionally, the Navy will have to ensure that it attracts a bright talent pool that will be fully invested in the surface warfare mission area. One way the Navy is developing the tactics and talent necessary to execute the distributed lethality concept is to set up the surface fleet’s equivalent of naval aviation’s famed Top Gun school—the Naval Surface and Mine Warfighting Development Center. The new school not only trains experts in surface warfare, anti-submarine warfare, mine warfare, amphibious warfare and integrated and air missile defense, it also develops new tactics and helps prepare carrier strike groups for war. “That organization is off to an absolutely tremendous start,” Rowden said. “The impact they have had across the fleet in the preparation for our strike groups to sail is really phenomenal.”
But while tactics and training will help create sharp surface warfare officers who can exploit the full capabilities of the Navy’s warships, American sailors will need new tools to take on the growing threat of enemy surface forces. While the Navy is working on developing new weapons such as the Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM)—which it might adopt for its warships—the service is modifying many existing armaments and ships so that they contribute to the sea control mission.
For example:
On July 21, 2016, the third successful surface-launched LRASM test was conducted from the USN SDTS at Pt. Mugu Sea Range, CA. This test proved the missile’s ability to load mission data using the modified Tactical Tomahawk Weapon Control System (TTWCS+), and align mission data with the moving ship and launch from the MK 41 Vertical Launch System (VLS). During the test, LRASM exited the VLS launcher, cleanly separated from its Mk-114 booster and transitioned to the cruise phase. The missile successfully flew a pre-planned low-altitude profile collecting aerodynamics agility data while enroute to its pre-determined endpoint.
One of those weapons is the Raytheon Standard SM-6 missile, which was originally developed as an extended range anti-aircraft and anti-missile weapon. However, the service discovered during the missile’s development that it could be adapted to be used as a long-range anti-ship weapon. “As we were developing that anti-air weapon, given the fact that type of seeker that we had built into the that, we asked ourselves the question: ‘Could we modify it to make it an anti-ship weapon as well because it had an active seeker it.’ And so we went to work on that.”
The result was a dual-capable weapon that not only far out-ranged any currently installed anti-ship weapon onboard a U.S. Navy surface combatant, but a missile that was far faster and more survivable against some of the most fearsome potential adversaries the American surface fleet might encounter. “That has a range that is well beyond the range of missiles we had in the inventory with respect to the anti-ship cruise missiles,” Rowden said.
However, the SM-6 is just the beginning. The Navy is looking at other opportunities to extend the range of its anti-ship capabilities. One candidate for that role is the Tomahawk cruise missile. While the Navy fielded an anti-ship Tomahawk missile variant decades ago, that weapon was withdrawn from service during the 1990s partly due to its questionable effectiveness. “One of the things we’re looking at is: ‘Is it possible to put a seeker in a Tomahawk?’” Rowden said. “We had Tomahawk anti-ship missiles a long time ago, and we took those out of the inventory. But given our advances in our ability to target at range, we’re looking to see if in fact that’s another weapon that we want to go after.”
The Navy is already starting to field the distributed lethality concept. Rowden noted that there are already several Baseline 9 configuration Aegis destroyers already serving with the fleet. But while Aegis cruisers and destroyers—not to mention the new Zumwalt-class warships—are the Navy’s premier surface combatants, every ship in the service’s inventory has a role in distributed lethality. “I see roles to play across the spectrum of ships that we operate,” Rowden said, noting that in addition to the cruisers and destroyers, the littoral combat ships will also have a prominent role in the sea control fight.
Indeed, the Navy is considering adding Mk-41 vertical launch tubes onboard the service’s amphibious assault ships—especially now that those vessels can carry the Lockheed Martin F-35B Joint Strike Fighter. Those vessels might be able to contribute significantly not only to sea control, but also to the service’s ability to maneuver from the sea. “Given the Joint Strike Fighter coming to the flight decks of our big-deck amphibs and given the capabilities in those fifth-generation fighters, I think we need to think differently about how we’re going to utilize our amphibious ships in the sea control fight as well,” Rowden said. “So I am able to go to the Naval Surface and Mine Warfighting Development Center with all of these possibilities.”
At least in the case of the San Antonio-class amphibious assault ships, it would be a relatively easy modification to add missile tubes to those ships. Rowden noted that those vessels were built with the space, weight, power and cooling capacity to accommodate the Mk-41 launchers. “That’s certainly an option to backfit those ships as we go forward,” Rowden said. “I think what we have to do is, as we work through this, is to figure out if that’s the right call to make.”
Ultimately, the Navy has a simple goal for distributed lethality: additional options for the national leadership. The Navy will be able to offer more than just a carrier strike group, expeditionary strike group or a submarine in times of crisis if Rowden’s vision comes to fruition. “At the core of what we’re driving is to give the leadership of our country as many tools in the toolbox to accomplish what the country needs our Navy to do,” Rowden said. “If I can get different tools into that tool box that allows the leadership different options as we look at the variety of threats that we’re facing in the future, I think that’s my responsibility to go do that.”
So the mobilized "prong" of the US defense trident would have the ability to wage a war on its own. even after the US itself is gone.
But if the USA launches missiles, will the warheads be significantly different from the ones launched by N. Korea?
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/with-north-korea-crisis-will-the-neutron-bomb-be-of_us_598b8ec8e4b08a4c247f2823
nowing the dark side of Donald Trump, I almost think the nuclear option is weighing heavily on the President. After all, if he dropped a nuclear bomb, talk of Russia would likely evaporate rather quickly, as would untold lives. But, to my knowledge, none of the nuclear arsenal the United States has today would work in the North Korea situation. Pyongyang is only a little over 100 miles to the border of China. A nuclear bomb — even a small one — would have a high likelihood of actually devastating parts of China. In addition, it would probably do damage to South Korea, and the fallout would be significant for US allies throughout the region. Our current options that we are aware of, do not seem viable.
Don’t be surprised if they bring the neutron bomb to a theater (of war) near you.
This made me think about the neutron bomb, which was all the craze in national security debates back in the 1970s. The neutron bomb was considered more humane than other nuclear missiles. It was designed during the Cold War to be a deterrent to the Soviet Union in case it attempted a massive invasion of Western Europe, the missile would have been considered a tactical weapon because it had the ability to greatly limit the area it would target, would focus on the killing of lives rather than the destruction of infrastructure, and would have a a shorter radiation life than other nuclear bombs. In spite of the fact it seemed, full of “sensibilities,” policy specialists and the Carter Administration closed the door on its further development. It was simply too dark to have a nuclear bomb be considered a tactical weapon. It is the type of thing you find in a sci-fi movie. Then again, this current administration seems increasingly like a dystopia that would be common in a science fiction film. Adding a nuclear bomb as a conventional weapon is certainly a logical addition to Trump’s bizarre cast of characters.
We were told the doors were closed on the neutron bomb decades ago, but I doubt seriously they destroyed the information they had on it. The idea of it being “humane” would be far fetched to most, but makes perfect sense in the world of Donald Trump.
Such weaponry may in fact exist already. And not just in the USA where objections resulted in the Carter Administration not continuing the program. It says here:
History and deployment to present
The conception of neutron bombs is generally credited to Samuel T. Cohen of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, who developed the concept in 1958.[14] Initial development was carried out as part of projects Dove and Starling, and an early device was tested underground in early 1962. Designs of a "weaponized" version were carried out in 1963.[15][16]
Development of two production designs for the army's MGM-52 Lance short-range missile began in July 1964, the W63 at Livermore and the W64 at Los Alamos. Both entered phase three testing in July 1964, and the W64 was cancelled in favor of the W63 in September 1964. The W63 was in turn cancelled in November 1965 in favor of the W70 (Mod 0), a conventional design.[15] By this time, the same concepts were being used to develop warheads for the Sprint missile, an anti-ballistic missile (ABM), with Livermore designing the W65 and Los Alamos the W66. Both entered phase three testing in October 1965, but the W65 was cancelled in favor of the W66 in November 1968. Testing of the W66 was carried out in the late 1960s, and entered production in June 1974,[15] the first neutron bomb to do so. Approximately 120 were built, with about 70 of these being on active duty during 1975 and 1976 as part of the Safeguard Program. When that program was shut down they were placed in storage, and eventually decommissioned in the early 1980s.[15]
Development of ER warheads for Lance continued, but in the early 1970s attention had turned to using modified versions of the W70, the W70 Mod 3.[15] Development was subsequently postponed by President Jimmy Carter in 1978 following protests against his administration's plans to deploy neutron warheads to ground forces in Europe.[17] On November 17, 1978, in a test the USSR detonated its first similar-type bomb.[18] President Ronald Reagan restarted production in 1981.[17] The Soviet Union renewed a propaganda campaign against the US's neutron bomb in 1981 following Reagan's announcement. In 1983 Reagan then announced the Strategic Defense Initiative, which surpassed neutron bomb production in ambition and vision and with that, neutron bombs quickly faded from the center of the public's attention.[18]
Attempted warhead replacement programs
Initial Enhanced Gun caliber
W48 W82 155 mm
W33 W79 203mm
Three types of enhanced radiation weapons (ERW) were deployed by the United States.[19] The W66 warhead, for the anti-ICBM Sprint missile system, was deployed in 1975 and retired the next year, along with the missile system. The W70 Mod 3 warhead was developed for the short-range, tactical MGM-52 Lance missile, and the W79 Mod 0 was developed for nuclear artillery shells. The latter two types were retired by President George H. W. Bush in 1992, following the end of the Cold War.[20][21] The last W70 Mod 3 warhead was dismantled in 1996,[22] and the last W79 Mod 0 was dismantled by 2003, when the dismantling of all W79 variants was completed.[23]
According to the Cox Report, as of 1999 the United States had never deployed a neutron weapon. The nature of this statement is not clear; it reads "The stolen information also includes classified design information for an enhanced radiation weapon (commonly known as the "neutron bomb"), which neither the United States, nor any other nation, has ever deployed."[24] However, the fact that neutron bombs had been produced by the US was well known at this time and part of the public record. Cohen suggests the report is playing with the definitions; while the US bombs were never deployed to Europe, they remained stockpiled in the US.[25]
In addition to the two superpowers, France and China are known to have tested neutron or enhanced radiation bombs. France conducted an early test of the technology in 1967[26] and tested an "actual" neutron bomb in 1980.[27] China conducted a successful test of neutron bomb principles in 1984 and a successful test of a neutron bomb in 1988. However, neither of those countries chose to deploy neutron bombs. Chinese nuclear scientists stated before the 1988 test that China had no need for neutron bombs, but it was developed to serve as a "technology reserve", in case the need arose in the future.[28]
In August, 1999, the Indian government disclosed that India was capable of producing a neutron bomb.[29]
Although no country is currently known to deploy them in an offensive manner, all thermonuclear dial-a-yield warheads that have about 10 kiloton and lower as one dial option, with a considerable fraction of that yield derived from fusion reactions, can be considered able to be neutron bombs in use, if not in name. The only country definitely known to deploy dedicated (that is, not dial-a-yield) neutron warheads for any length of time is the Soviet Union/Russia,[30] which inherited the USSR's neutron warhead equipped ABM-3 Gazelle missile program. This ABM system contains at least 68 neutron warheads with a 10 kiloton yield each and it has been in service since 1995, with inert missile testing approximately every other year since then (2014). The system is designed to destroy incoming endoatmospheric level nuclear warheads aimed at Moscow and other targets and is the lower-tier/last umbrella of the A-135 anti-ballistic missile system (NATO reporting name: ABM-3).[7]
{By 1984, according to Mordechai Vanunu, Israel was mass-producing neutron bombs.[31]}
Considerable controversy arose in the US and Western Europe following a June 1977 Washington Post exposé describing US government plans to purchase the bomb. The article focused on the fact that it was the first weapon specifically intended to kill humans with radiation.[32][33] Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory director Harold Brown and Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev both described neutron bombs as a "capitalist bomb", because it was designed to destroy people while preserving property.[34][35][need quotation to verify] Science fiction author and commentator Isaac Asimov also stated[relevant? – discuss] that "Such a neutron bomb or N bomb seems desirable to those who worry about property and hold life cheap."[36][37]
Use
The 1979 Soviet/Warsaw Pact invasion plan, "Seven Days to the River Rhine" to seize West Germany. Soviet analysts had correctly assumed that the NATO response would be to use regular tactical nuclear weapons to stop such a massive Warsaw Pact invasion.[38] According to proponents, neutron bombs would blunt an invasion by Soviet tanks and armored vehicles without causing as much damage or civilian deaths as the older nuclear weapons would.[39] Neutron bombs would have been used if the REFORGER conventional response of NATO to the invasion was too slow or ineffective.[40][41]
Neutron bombs are purposely designed with explosive yields lower than other nuclear weapons. Since neutrons are scattered and absorbed by air,[2] neutron radiation effects drop off rapidly with distance in air. As such, there is a sharper distinction, relative to thermal effects, between areas of high lethality and areas with minimal radiation doses.[3] All high yield (more than c. 10 kiloton) nuclear bombs, such as the extreme example of a device that derived 97% of its energy from fusion, the 50 megaton Tsar Bomba, are not able to radiate sufficient neutrons beyond their lethal blast range when detonated as a surface burst or low altitude air burst and so are no longer classified as neutron bombs, thus limiting the yield of neutron bombs to a maximum of about 10 kilotons. The intense pulse of high-energy neutrons generated by a neutron bomb is the principal killing mechanism, not the fallout, heat or blast.
The inventor of the neutron bomb, Sam Cohen, criticized the description of the W70 as a neutron bomb since it could be configured to yield 100 kilotons:
the W-70 ... is not even remotely a "neutron bomb." Instead of being the type of weapon that, in the popular mind, "kills people and spares buildings" it is one that both kills and physically destroys on a massive scale. The W-70 is not a discriminate weapon, like the neutron bomb—which, incidentally, should be considered a weapon that "kills enemy personnel while sparing the physical fabric of the attacked populace, and even the populace too."[42]
Although neutron bombs are commonly believed to "leave the infrastructure intact", with current designs that have explosive yields in the low kiloton range,[43] detonation in (or above) a built-up area would still cause a sizable degree of building destruction, through blast and heat effects out to a moderate radius, albeit considerably less destruction, than when compared to a standard nuclear bomb of the exact same total energy release or "yield".[44]
U.S. Army M110 howitzers in a 1984 REFORGER staging area before transport. Variants of this "dual capable"[45] nuclear artillery howitzer would launch the W79 neutron bomb.[46]
The Warsaw Pact tank strength was over twice that of NATO, and Soviet deep battle doctrine was likely to be to use this numerical advantage to rapidly sweep across continental Europe if the Cold War ever turned hot. Any weapon that could break up their intended mass tank formation deployments and force them to deploy their tanks in a thinner, more easily dividable manner,[4] would aid ground forces in the task of hunting down solitary tanks and using anti-tank missiles against them,[47] such as the contemporary M47 Dragon and BGM-71 TOW missiles, of which NATO had hundreds of thousands.[48]
Rather than making extensive preparations for battlefield nuclear combat in Central Europe, "The Soviet military leadership believed that conventional superiority provided the Warsaw Pact with the means to approximate the effects of nuclear weapons and achieve victory in Europe without resort to those weapons."[49]
Neutron bombs, or more precisely, enhanced [neutron] radiation weapons were also to find use as strategic anti-ballistic missile weapons,[44] and in this role they are believed to remain in active service within Russia's Gazelle missile.[30]
Effects
Wood frame house in 1953 nuclear test, 5 pounds per square inch (psi) overpressure, full collapse. Although neutron bombs, such as that fitted on the MGM-52 Lance missile would cause similar levels of destruction as depicted here within the zone were ~1970s tank crews would also be incapacitated by neutron radiation. When compared to the range of destruction that would be caused by the comparatively higher yield conventional nuclear weapons that it supplanted (e.g., MGR-1 Honest John), which had been needed to deliver the same range and intensity of neutron dose to neutralize tank crews, the range of civilian destruction and amount of fission product fallout generated by a neutron bomb is far more constrained.[50] This would spare the destruction of West Germany more than would otherwise be the case.
Upon detonation, a near-ground airburst of a 1 kiloton neutron bomb would produce a large blast wave and a powerful pulse of both thermal radiation and ionizing radiation, and non-ionizing radiation in the form of fast (14.1 MeV) neutrons. The thermal pulse would cause third degree burns to unprotected skin out to approximately 500 meters. The blast would create at least 4.6 psi out to a radius of 600 meters, which would severely damage all non-reinforced concrete structures. At the conventional effective combat range against modern main battle tanks and armored personnel carriers (< 690–900 m), the blast from a 1 kt neutron bomb would destroy or damage to the point of non-usability of almost all un-reinforced civilian buildings.
Using neutron bombs to stop an enemy armored attack by rapidly incapacitating crews with a dose of 8000+ rads of radiation[51] would require exploding large numbers of them to blanket the enemy forces, destroying all normal civilian buildings within c. 600 meters of the immediate area.[51][52] Neutron activation from the explosions could make many building materials in the city radioactive, such as zinc coated steel/galvanized steel (see area denial use below).
Because liquid-filled objects like the human body are resistant to gross overpressure, the 4–5 psi blast overpressure would cause very few direct casualties at a range of c. 600 m. The powerful winds produced by this overpressure, however, could throw bodies into objects or throw debris at high velocity, including window glass, both with potentially lethal results. Casualties would be highly variable depending on surroundings, including potential building collapses.[53]
The pulse of neutron radiation would cause immediate and permanent incapacitation to unprotected outdoor humans in the open out to 900 meters,[9] with death occurring in one or two days. The median lethal dose (LD50) of 600 rads would extend to between 1350 and 1400 meters for those unprotected and outdoors,[51] where approximately half of those exposed would die of radiation sickness after several weeks.
A human residing within, or simply shielded by, at least one concrete building with walls and ceilings 30 cm (12 in) thick, or alternatively of damp soil 24 inches thick, would receive a neutron radiation exposure reduced by a factor of 10.[54][55] Even near ground zero, basement sheltering or buildings with similar radiation shielding characteristics would drastically reduce the radiation dose.[56]
Furthermore, the neutron absorption spectrum of air is disputed by some authorities, and depends in part on absorption by hydrogen from water vapor. Thus, absorption might vary exponentially with humidity, making neutron bombs far more deadly in desert climates than in humid ones.[51]
Effectiveness in modern anti-tank role
The neutron cross section and absorption probability in barns of the two natural boron isotopes found in nature (top curve is for 10 B and bottom curve for 11 B. As neutron energy increases to 14 MeV, the absorption effectiveness, in general, decreases. Thus, for boron-containing armor to be effective, fast neutrons must first be slowed by another element by neutron scattering.
The questionable effectiveness of ER weapons against modern tanks is cited as one of the main reasons that these weapons are no longer fielded or stockpiled. With the increase in average tank armor thickness since the first ER weapons were fielded, tank armor protection approaches the level where tank crews are now almost fully protected from radiation effects. Thus, for an ER weapon to incapacitate a modern tank crew through irradiation, the weapon must now be detonated at such a close proximity to the tank that the nuclear explosion's blast would now be equally effective at incapacitating it and its crew.[57] However this assertion was regarded as dubious in a reply in 1986[58] by a member of the Royal Military College of Science as neutron radiation from a 1 kiloton neutron bomb would incapacitate the crew of a tank with a protection factor of 35 out to a range of 280 meters, but the incapacitating blast range, depending on the exact weight of the tank, is much less, from 70 to 130 meters. However although the author did note that effective neutron absorbers and neutron poisons such as boron carbide can be incorporated into conventional armor and strap-on neutron moderating hydrogenous material (substances containing hydrogen atoms), such as explosive reactive armor, can both increase the protection factor, the author holds that in practice combined with neutron scattering, the actual average total tank area protection factor is rarely higher than 15.5 to 35.[59] According to the Federation of American Scientists, the neutron protection factor of a "tank" can be as low as 2,[2] without qualifying whether the statement implies a light tank, medium tank, or main battle tank.
A composite high density concrete, or alternatively, a laminated graded-Z shield, 24 units thick of which 16 units are iron and 8 units are polyethylene containing boron (BPE), and additional mass behind it to attenuate neutron capture gamma rays, is more effective than just 24 units of pure iron or BPE alone, due to the advantages of both iron and BPE in combination. Iron is effective in slowing down/scattering high-energy neutrons in the 14-MeV energy range and attenuating gamma rays, while the hydrogen in polyethylene is effective in slowing down these now slower fast neutrons in the few MeV range, and boron 10 has a high absorption cross section for thermal neutrons and a low production yield of gamma rays when it absorbs a neutron.[60][61][62][63] The Soviet T72 tank, in response to the neutron bomb threat, is cited as having fitted a boronated[64] polyethylene liner, which has had its neutron shielding properties simulated.[55][65]
The radiation weighting factor for neutrons of various energy has been revised over time and certain agencies have different weighting factors, however despite the variation amongst the agencies, from the graph, for a given energy, A fusion neutron (14.1 MeV) although more energetic, is less biologically harmful as rated in Sieverts, than a fission generated thermal neutron or a fusion neutron slowed to that energy, c. 0.8 MeV.
However, some tank armor material contains depleted uranium (DU), common in the US's M1A1 Abrams tank, which incorporates steel-encased depleted uranium armor,[66] a substance that will fast fission when it captures a fast, fusion-generated neutron, and thus on fissioning will produce fission neutrons and fission products embedded within the armor, products which emit among other things, penetrating gamma rays. Although the neutrons emitted by the neutron bomb may not penetrate to the tank crew in lethal quantities, the fast fission of DU within the armor could still ensure a lethal environment for the crew and maintenance personnel by fission neutron and gamma ray exposure[dubious – discuss],[67] largely depending on the exact thickness and elemental composition of the armor—information usually hard to attain. Despite this, Ducrete—which has an elemental composition similar to, but not identical to the ceramic second generation heavy metal Chobham armor of the Abrams tank—is an effective radiation shield, to both fission neutrons and gamma rays due to it being a graded Z material.[68][69] Uranium, being about twice as dense as lead, is thus nearly twice as effective at shielding gamma ray radiation per unit thickness.[70]
Use against ballistic missiles
As an anti-ballistic missile weapon, the first fielded ER warhead, the W66, was developed for the Sprint missile system as part of the Safeguard Program to protect United States cities and missile silos from incoming Soviet warheads by damaging their electronic components with the intense neutron flux.[44] Ionization greater than 5,000 rads in silicon chips delivered over seconds to minutes will degrade the function of semiconductors for long periods.[71] Due to the rarefied atmosphere encountered high above the earth at the most likely intercept point of an incoming warhead by a neutron bomb/warhead – the terminal phase point (10–30 km) of the incoming warhead's flight—the neutrons generated by a mid- to high-altitude nuclear explosion (HANE) have an even greater range than that encountered after a low altitude air burst. In the high altitude case, there is a lower density of air molecules that produces, an appreciable reduction in the air shielding effect/half-value thickness.
However, although this neutron transparency advantage attained only increases at increased altitudes, neutron effects lose importance in the exoatmospheric environment, being overtaken by the range of another effect of a nuclear detonation, at approximately the same altitude as the end of the incoming missile's boost phase (c. 150 km), ablation producing soft X-rays are the chief nuclear effects threat to the survival of incoming missiles and warheads rather than neutrons.[72] A factor exploited by the other warhead of the Safeguard Program, the enhanced (X-ray) radiation W71 and its USSR/Russian counterpart, the warhead on the A-135 Gorgon missile.
Another method by which neutron radiation can be used to destroy incoming nuclear warheads is by serving as an intense neutron generator and to thus initiate fission in the incoming warhead's fissionable components by fast fission[citation needed], potentially causing the incoming warhead to prematurely detonate in a fizzle if within sufficient proximity, but in most likely interception ranges, requiring only that enough fissionable material in the warhead fissions to interfere with the functioning of the incoming warhead when it is later fuzed to explode (see related physics: Subcritical reactor).
Lithium-6 hydride (Li6H) is cited as being used as a countermeasure to reduce the vulnerability and "harden" nuclear warheads from the effects of externally generated neutrons.[73][74] Radiation hardening of the warhead's electronic components as a countermeasure to high altitude neutron warheads somewhat reduces the range that a neutron warhead could successfully cause an unrecoverable glitch by the transient radiation effects on electronics (TREE) effects.[75][76]
Use as an area denial weapon
In November 2012, during the planning stages of Operation Hammer of God, British Labour peer Lord Gilbert suggested that multiple enhanced radiation reduced blast (ERRB) warheads could be detonated in the mountain region of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border to prevent infiltration.[77] He proposed to warn the inhabitants to evacuate, then irradiate the area, making it unusable and impassable.[78] Used in this manner, the neutron bomb(s), regardless of burst height, would release neutron activated casing materials used in the bomb, and depending on burst height, create radioactive soil activation products.
In much the same fashion as the area denial effect resulting from fission product (the substances that make up most fallout) contamination in an area following a conventional surface burst nuclear explosion, as considered in the Korean War by Douglas MacArthur, it would thus be a form of radiological warfare—with the difference that neutron bombs produce half, or less, of the quantity of fission products relative to the same-yield pure fission bomb. Radiological warfare with neutron bombs that rely on fission primaries would thus still produce fission fallout, albeit a comparatively cleaner and shorter lasting version of it in the area if air bursts were used, as little to no fission products would be deposited on the direct immediate area, instead becoming diluted global fallout.
However the most effective use of a neutron bomb with respect to area denial would be to encase it in a thick shell of material that could be neutron activated, and use a surface burst. In this manner the neutron bomb would be turned into a salted bomb; a case of zinc-64, produced as a byproduct of depleted zinc oxide enrichment, would for example probably be the most attractive for military use, as when activated, the zinc-65 so formed is a gamma emitter, with a half life of 244 days.[79]
Maintenance[edit]
Neutron bombs-warheads require considerable maintenance for their abilities, requiring some tritium for fusion boosting[citation needed] and tritium in the secondary stage (yielding more neutrons), in amounts on the order of a few tens of grams[80] (10–30 grams[81] estimated). Because tritium has a relatively short half-life of 12.32 years (after that time, half the tritium has decayed), it is necessary to replenish it periodically to keep the bomb effective. (For instance: to maintain a constant level of 24 grams of tritium in a warhead, about 1.3 grams per bomb per year[82] must be supplied.) Moreover, tritium decays into helium-3, which absorbs neutrons[83] and will thus further reduce the bomb's neutron yield.
Keep in mind that the alliance with Israel will have a significant effect both ways. The AC now has access to the most effective antitank weapon in very large numbers and the only real advantage Russian has over NATO is it's huge number of tanks stationed to defend it's Wastern borders.
Missiles from North Korea climb to the top of their trajectory and arch toward the States.
The resident authorized use of nuclear weapons by the fleet in the Sea of Japan. Specifically against the North Korean capital and against the heavily armed no man's land between the North and South.
The leader of China uses his hotline to call the US President and warn him against use of nuclear weapons in response, to tell him that the Chinese will deal with the problem themselves.
The President refuses to be distracted by foreign callers and does not take the call. He is certain he has done the only thing possible. He believes an already depleted US cannot fail to respond or it will look weak and be attacked by everyone.
The Missile sub with the US Fleet in the Sea of japan launches it's first missile.
North Korean armed forces send planes and missiles at the US fleet.
US attack subs sink N. Korean warships. US destroyers sink N. Korean subs. US planes engage the N. Korean forces over the seas .
The US sub launches it second mIssile. N. Korean defenses shoots down the first US Missile. But it has already launched it's "bouncing Betty" land mine load of warheads.
"Nuclear devices" fall on P'yongyang.
The US ABM compliment has been damaged by the ice and cold. Most of them work and intercept eight of the missiles from Asia. Two get through. San Fransisco and LA are hit by 20 kilotons of blast.
Nearby in California, there is a supervolcano lying somewhat dormant in Long Valley. Nuclear explosions on the faultline would have an undetermined effect on . Experts disagree except for one point: no one thinks the result would be good
Chinese territory suffers fallout immediately. The warheads were not ERW.
What has begun is now unstoppable. The war horseman hits full gallop.
"You fight the good fight and then one morning you wake up and realize all your world is Satan's little helper."
David (Anti human, Anti Christian movie) Atomic Blond
"What? You think this is a community. It's a bunch of people drawn together by lies."
Citizen on Loch Ness
In the British Acorn TV television show Loch Ness, the presence of the monster myth lingers under the storyline, always in the background of everyone's story. Three teens gather a collection of animal parts from the local rendering works and put together a mock dead monster to get publicity for themselves and undermine the power of the myth. One policemen clearing up the mess the next morning discovers what looks like a human heart in the middle of the reeking pile of guts and bone. It forms a ploit connection with the "cold bloody" monster killer in Series One of the show, but it underlines something else: in the middle of every myth lies a cold dead human heart, the heart of the unsaved, striving to attain life.
We all want to be alive. And that is one of the deep secrets of all our searching through all the myths and comic book heroes and every idol ever built. We are all born dead. Our spirits cry for life. But we can't see the truth of Christ unless we let the Spirit stir us to real life. Our zombie minds demand a dead god we can worship, one we can invest with our own power. As another Loch Ness character says: "It's all about power and control."
Meanwhile, in Loch Ness, the local officials try to suppress all the evidence in the murders for their own reasons even as the myth users feed the myths to build their power. The way so many throughout the world have done over the centuries. Many even treating the reality of Christ as a myth for their own purposes whether they be academic or political. Treating even the true God as a falsehood.
And then there are the ones who want to assume His mantle: all those antichrists across history.
The seal of warfare opens after the AC is revealed in his treaty. Warfare that can be worldwide in a heartbeat,
http://submarinewarriors.com/facts/
Trident Submarines
Named for the 24, Trident II Submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) they carry, the Ohio-class submarines were designed specifically for extended war-deterrence patrols. Each of these submarines are provided with two complete crews, called the Blue crew and the Gold crew, with each crew serving typically on 70 to 90 day deterrent patrols.
Trident Submarine
Ballistic missile submarines have been of great strategic importance to the United States and other nuclear powers since the start of the Cold War, as they can hide from reconnaissance satellites and fire their nuclear weapons with virtual impunity. This makes them immune to a first strike directed against nuclear forces, allowing each side to maintain the capability to launch a devastating retaliatory strike, even if all land-based missiles have been destroyed.
Trident II Missiles
These missiles launch from underwater in a vertical missile tube inside the submarine. They rapidly ascend to the surface inside a gas bubble. Flying out of the ocean, internal gyros let the missile know when it’s beginning to fall back towards the water. This triggers the rockets to fire sending the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile thousands of miles towards its target.
They typically deliver multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs), each of which carries a nuclear warhead and allows a single launched missile to strike several targets.
North korea has submarines of its own:
http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/25/asia/north-korea-submarine-technology/index.html
What if North Korea's missiles come from underwater?
By Joshua Berlinger, CNN
Updated 4:25 AM ET, Mon September 26, 2016
Moment North Korea fired missile over Japan
A military vehicle carries what is believed to be a Taepodong-class missile Intermediary Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM), about 20 meters long, during a military parade to mark the 100 birth of the country's founder Kim Il-Sung in Pyongyang on April 15, 2012. The commemorations came just two days after a satellite launch timed to mark the centenary fizzled out embarrassingly when the rocket apparently exploded within minutes of blastoff and plunged into the sea. AFP PHOTO / PEDRO UGARTE (Photo credit should read PEDRO UGARTE/AFP/Getty Images)
How far can a North Korean missile reach?
south korea plans for kim jong un hancocks lklv_00011708.jpg
N. Korea threatens to wipe out Seoul
A U.S. Air Force B-1B Lancer, assigned to the 37th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron, deployed from Ellsworth Air Force Base, South Dakota, prepares to take off from Andersen AFB, Guam, Sept. 23, 2017. This mission was flown as part of the continuing demonstration of the ironclad U.S. commitment to the defense of its homeland and in support of its partners and allies.
Moment North Korea fired missile over Japan
A military vehicle carries what is believed to be a Taepodong-class missile Intermediary Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM), about 20 meters long, during a military parade to mark the 100 birth of the country's founder Kim Il-Sung in Pyongyang on April 15, 2012. The commemorations came just two days after a satellite launch timed to mark the centenary fizzled out embarrassingly when the rocket apparently exploded within minutes of blastoff and plunged into the sea. AFP PHOTO / PEDRO UGARTE (Photo credit should read PEDRO UGARTE/AFP/Getty Images)
How far can a North Korean missile reach?
North Korea tested submarine-launched missile in late August.
It introduces a "new dynamic into the threat matrix on the Korean peninsula," expert says.
Hong Kong (CNN)The US and South Korean navies took to the seas Monday with a message for North Korea: Think twice before you threaten us.
This so-called "show of force" comes during the same month in which North Korea conducted its fifth nuclear test just days after successfully launching three missiles into the Sea of Japan.
The North, for its part, claims it tested a nuclear warhead -- which can be placed on top of a missile -- though there is no way to verify that claim.
And the possibility of pairing a nuclear warhead with a missile is all the more frightening when you consider the country has also been testing how to launch missiles underwater, where they're harder to detect.
"The question that some experts are raising is whether or not the North Koreans can actually mate a miniaturized nuclear warhead onto such a missile," Alexander Neill, a North Korea expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies Asia," told CNN.
"If there's evidence that they can do that -- or they have done that -- than this is major concern for the region."
Those tests come just after North Korea had what many experts believe to be its first successful submarine missile launch in August.
"While this was a substantial improvement in North Korea's demonstrated capabilities, it does not likely represent an operational submarine launched ballistic missile capability at this time," John Schilling, an aerospace engineer and contributor to the North Korea monitoring project 38 North, told CNN in an email after the sub missile launch.
The missile traveled 311 miles (500 kilometers) -- and was the first projectile ever fired by the North Koreans to reach Japan's air defense identification zone, according to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
The Gorae submarine is largely shrouded in mystery -- it's not clear if the North Koreans are planning to use it as an experimental vehicle or whether it will be replicated and reproduced, Jane's says.
And the test itself was an audacious and risky move, Schilling says.
"Testing from a submarine shows great confidence from the North Koreans, almost recklessly so," he said.
"The solid-fuel KN-11 is basically a new design, and North Korean missiles almost never work right on their first try. They took a big risk of damaging or sinking their only ballistic missile submarine, something we wouldn't have expected this soon, and it paid off for them (this time). "
The rest of North Korea's fleet is mostly older, Soviet-era submarine equipment.
The country has about 70 submarines in its fleet, according to various independent estimates.
And those subs are louder and easier to detect, according to Neill.
Some of them are older, Soviet-era pieces of equipment, while others were transferred from China in the 1970s.
And, deployed with that missile launching sub is an aircraft carrier:
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/five-reasons-us-aircraft-carriers-are-nearly-impossible-sink-17318
The vulnerability issue is harder to address because putting 5,000 sailors and six dozen high-performance aircraft on a $10 billion warship creates what military experts refer to as a very "lucrative" target. Taking one out would be a big achievement for America's enemies, and a big setback for America's military. However, the likelihood of any adversary actually achieving that without using nuclear weapons is pretty close to zero. It isn't going to happen, and here are five big reasons why.
Large-deck carriers are fast and resilient. Nimitz-class carriers of the type that dominate the current fleet, like the Ford-class carriers that will replace them, are the biggest warships ever built. They have 25 decks standing 250 feet in height, and displace 100,000 tons of water. With hundreds of watertight compartments and thousands of tons of armor, no conventional torpedo or mine is likely to cause serious damage. And because carriers are constantly moving when deployed at up to 35 miles per hour -- fast enough to outrun submarines -- finding and tracking them is difficult. Within 30 minutes after a sighting by enemies, the area within which a carrier might be operating has grown to 700 square miles; after 90 minutes, it has expanded to 6,000 square miles.
Carrier defenses are formidable. U.S. aircraft carriers are equipped with extensive active and passive defenses for defeating threats such as low-flying cruise missiles and hostile submarines. These include an array of high-performance sensors, radar-guided missiles and 20 mm Gatling guns that shoot 50 rounds per second. The carrier air wing of 60+ aircraft includes a squadron of early-warning radar planes that can detect approaching threats (including radar periscopes) over vast distances and helicopters equipped for anti-submarine, anti-surface and counter-mine warfare. All of the carrier's defensive sensors and weapons are netted together through an on-board command center for coordinated action against adversaries.
Carriers do not operate alone. Carriers typically deploy as part of a "carrier strike group" that includes multiple guided-missile warships equipped with the Aegis combat system. Aegis is the most advanced air and missile defense system in the world, capable of defeating every potential overhead threat including ballistic missiles. It is linked to other offensive and defensive systems on board U.S. surface combatants that can defeat submarines, surface ships and floating mines, or attack enemy sensors needed to guide attacking missiles. In combination with the carrier air wing, these warships can quickly degrade enemy systems used to track the strike group. Carrier strike groups often include one or more stealthy attack subs capable of defeating undersea and surface threats.
Navy tactics maximize survivability. Although U.S. aircraft carriers are protected by the most potent, multi-layered defensive shield ever conceived, they do not take chances when deployed near potential adversaries. Their operational tactics have evolved to minimize risk while still delivering the offensive punch that is their main reason for existing. For instance, a carrier will generally not operate in areas where mines might have been laid until the area has been thoroughly cleared. It will tend to stay in the open ocean rather than entering confined areas where approaching threats are hard to sort out from other local traffic. It will keep moving to complicate the targeting challenge for enemies. It will also use links to other joint assets from the seabed to low-earth orbit to achieve detailed situational awareness.
Note: the US keeps three of these systems operating on the seas at all times. Literally, there are three cities floating on the ocean designed to wage war with nuclear fueled operating systems that don't need to land for any reason beyond supplies and surrounded by a ring of protection and death dealing power.
Do you begin to see the potential for destruction just by some of the US force in one location? Do you see the way we have kept it reined in for years? Do you see from last time the difficulty in using that force specifically in the North korean situation without triggering a Chinese involvement?
Now add this factor:
http://www.businessinsider.com/north-korean-workers-in-russia-2017-10
President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that around 40,000 North Korean citizens were currently working in Russia.
Such workers are known to regularly send back part of their wages to the North Korean authorities.
Putin, speaking at an energy forum, said Moscow was concerned about rising tensions between Pyongyang and the West over North Korea’s nuclear and missile program because it shared a border with the country.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/11/world/europe/north-korea-russia-migrants.html
VLADIVOSTOK, Russia — Across Western Europe and the United States, immigrants from poorer countries, whether plumbers from Poland or farmhands from Mexico, have become a lightning rod for economic anxieties over cheap labor.
The Russian city of Vladivostok on the Pacific Ocean, however, has eagerly embraced a new icon of border-crushing globalization: the North Korean painter.
Unlike migrant workers in much of the West, destitute decorators from North Korea are so welcome that they have helped make Russia at least the equal of China — Pyongyang’s main backer — as the world’s biggest user of labor from the impoverished yet nuclear-armed country.
“They are fast, cheap and very reliable, much better than Russian workers,” Yulia Kravchenko, a 32-year-old Vladivostok homemaker, said of the painters. “They do nothing but work from morning until late at night.”
The work habits that delight Vladivostok homeowners are also generating sorely needed cash for the world’s most isolated regime, a hereditary dictatorship in Pyongyang closing in on a nuclear weapon capable of hitting the United States. Just last week, the North reached a milestone by testing its first intercontinental ballistic missile.
Yes, there is also a Russian border. And a lot of water that mixes with the Pacific. And a lot of fresh water rivers that feed into it.
So the capacity of a fleet to attack becomes more important as well as defending against it.
Dave Majumdar
October 25, 2016
Faced with growing challenges to its domination of the world’s oceans, the United States Navy is once again focusing its efforts on gaining and maintaining control of the seas.
Since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, the U.S. Navy’s mastery of the seas has been unchallenged by any other power. Without a rival, the U.S. Navy focused the efforts of its surface fleet on power projection and defending its aircraft carriers—with the overwhelming majority of the service’s offensive firepower increasingly concentrated in the air wing. However, with great power competitors such as Russia and China increasingly developing surface warfare capabilities that might one day challenge the U.S. Navy’s dominance of the waves, the service is returning to its core mission of sea control.
“Our Navy controls the sea for the benefit of our nation and for the benefit of our allies,” Vice Adm. Tom Rowden, commander, Naval Surface Forces, told The National Interest during an Oct. 25 interview. “So how do we get after that in the surface warfare community?”
Rowden’s answer is a concept called distributed lethality, which he developed while serving as the Navy’s director of surface warfare (N96) in the Pentagon. “As I reviewed the requirements for our surface ships, we had a tendency to move away from offensive capability—or what I would refer to as sea control capability—to more defensive capability, which is defending those power projection assets. And I think that was a natural evolution that we executed in the wake of the Cold War in the wake of the wars that we were involved in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
To achieve the Navy’s goals, the service will not only have to invest in upgraded hardware, but also on improved training and tactics. Additionally, the Navy will have to ensure that it attracts a bright talent pool that will be fully invested in the surface warfare mission area. One way the Navy is developing the tactics and talent necessary to execute the distributed lethality concept is to set up the surface fleet’s equivalent of naval aviation’s famed Top Gun school—the Naval Surface and Mine Warfighting Development Center. The new school not only trains experts in surface warfare, anti-submarine warfare, mine warfare, amphibious warfare and integrated and air missile defense, it also develops new tactics and helps prepare carrier strike groups for war. “That organization is off to an absolutely tremendous start,” Rowden said. “The impact they have had across the fleet in the preparation for our strike groups to sail is really phenomenal.”
But while tactics and training will help create sharp surface warfare officers who can exploit the full capabilities of the Navy’s warships, American sailors will need new tools to take on the growing threat of enemy surface forces. While the Navy is working on developing new weapons such as the Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM)—which it might adopt for its warships—the service is modifying many existing armaments and ships so that they contribute to the sea control mission.
For example:
On July 21, 2016, the third successful surface-launched LRASM test was conducted from the USN SDTS at Pt. Mugu Sea Range, CA. This test proved the missile’s ability to load mission data using the modified Tactical Tomahawk Weapon Control System (TTWCS+), and align mission data with the moving ship and launch from the MK 41 Vertical Launch System (VLS). During the test, LRASM exited the VLS launcher, cleanly separated from its Mk-114 booster and transitioned to the cruise phase. The missile successfully flew a pre-planned low-altitude profile collecting aerodynamics agility data while enroute to its pre-determined endpoint.
One of those weapons is the Raytheon Standard SM-6 missile, which was originally developed as an extended range anti-aircraft and anti-missile weapon. However, the service discovered during the missile’s development that it could be adapted to be used as a long-range anti-ship weapon. “As we were developing that anti-air weapon, given the fact that type of seeker that we had built into the that, we asked ourselves the question: ‘Could we modify it to make it an anti-ship weapon as well because it had an active seeker it.’ And so we went to work on that.”
The result was a dual-capable weapon that not only far out-ranged any currently installed anti-ship weapon onboard a U.S. Navy surface combatant, but a missile that was far faster and more survivable against some of the most fearsome potential adversaries the American surface fleet might encounter. “That has a range that is well beyond the range of missiles we had in the inventory with respect to the anti-ship cruise missiles,” Rowden said.
However, the SM-6 is just the beginning. The Navy is looking at other opportunities to extend the range of its anti-ship capabilities. One candidate for that role is the Tomahawk cruise missile. While the Navy fielded an anti-ship Tomahawk missile variant decades ago, that weapon was withdrawn from service during the 1990s partly due to its questionable effectiveness. “One of the things we’re looking at is: ‘Is it possible to put a seeker in a Tomahawk?’” Rowden said. “We had Tomahawk anti-ship missiles a long time ago, and we took those out of the inventory. But given our advances in our ability to target at range, we’re looking to see if in fact that’s another weapon that we want to go after.”
The Navy is already starting to field the distributed lethality concept. Rowden noted that there are already several Baseline 9 configuration Aegis destroyers already serving with the fleet. But while Aegis cruisers and destroyers—not to mention the new Zumwalt-class warships—are the Navy’s premier surface combatants, every ship in the service’s inventory has a role in distributed lethality. “I see roles to play across the spectrum of ships that we operate,” Rowden said, noting that in addition to the cruisers and destroyers, the littoral combat ships will also have a prominent role in the sea control fight.
Indeed, the Navy is considering adding Mk-41 vertical launch tubes onboard the service’s amphibious assault ships—especially now that those vessels can carry the Lockheed Martin F-35B Joint Strike Fighter. Those vessels might be able to contribute significantly not only to sea control, but also to the service’s ability to maneuver from the sea. “Given the Joint Strike Fighter coming to the flight decks of our big-deck amphibs and given the capabilities in those fifth-generation fighters, I think we need to think differently about how we’re going to utilize our amphibious ships in the sea control fight as well,” Rowden said. “So I am able to go to the Naval Surface and Mine Warfighting Development Center with all of these possibilities.”
At least in the case of the San Antonio-class amphibious assault ships, it would be a relatively easy modification to add missile tubes to those ships. Rowden noted that those vessels were built with the space, weight, power and cooling capacity to accommodate the Mk-41 launchers. “That’s certainly an option to backfit those ships as we go forward,” Rowden said. “I think what we have to do is, as we work through this, is to figure out if that’s the right call to make.”
Ultimately, the Navy has a simple goal for distributed lethality: additional options for the national leadership. The Navy will be able to offer more than just a carrier strike group, expeditionary strike group or a submarine in times of crisis if Rowden’s vision comes to fruition. “At the core of what we’re driving is to give the leadership of our country as many tools in the toolbox to accomplish what the country needs our Navy to do,” Rowden said. “If I can get different tools into that tool box that allows the leadership different options as we look at the variety of threats that we’re facing in the future, I think that’s my responsibility to go do that.”
So the mobilized "prong" of the US defense trident would have the ability to wage a war on its own. even after the US itself is gone.
But if the USA launches missiles, will the warheads be significantly different from the ones launched by N. Korea?
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/with-north-korea-crisis-will-the-neutron-bomb-be-of_us_598b8ec8e4b08a4c247f2823
nowing the dark side of Donald Trump, I almost think the nuclear option is weighing heavily on the President. After all, if he dropped a nuclear bomb, talk of Russia would likely evaporate rather quickly, as would untold lives. But, to my knowledge, none of the nuclear arsenal the United States has today would work in the North Korea situation. Pyongyang is only a little over 100 miles to the border of China. A nuclear bomb — even a small one — would have a high likelihood of actually devastating parts of China. In addition, it would probably do damage to South Korea, and the fallout would be significant for US allies throughout the region. Our current options that we are aware of, do not seem viable.
Don’t be surprised if they bring the neutron bomb to a theater (of war) near you.
This made me think about the neutron bomb, which was all the craze in national security debates back in the 1970s. The neutron bomb was considered more humane than other nuclear missiles. It was designed during the Cold War to be a deterrent to the Soviet Union in case it attempted a massive invasion of Western Europe, the missile would have been considered a tactical weapon because it had the ability to greatly limit the area it would target, would focus on the killing of lives rather than the destruction of infrastructure, and would have a a shorter radiation life than other nuclear bombs. In spite of the fact it seemed, full of “sensibilities,” policy specialists and the Carter Administration closed the door on its further development. It was simply too dark to have a nuclear bomb be considered a tactical weapon. It is the type of thing you find in a sci-fi movie. Then again, this current administration seems increasingly like a dystopia that would be common in a science fiction film. Adding a nuclear bomb as a conventional weapon is certainly a logical addition to Trump’s bizarre cast of characters.
We were told the doors were closed on the neutron bomb decades ago, but I doubt seriously they destroyed the information they had on it. The idea of it being “humane” would be far fetched to most, but makes perfect sense in the world of Donald Trump.
History and deployment to present
The conception of neutron bombs is generally credited to Samuel T. Cohen of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, who developed the concept in 1958.[14] Initial development was carried out as part of projects Dove and Starling, and an early device was tested underground in early 1962. Designs of a "weaponized" version were carried out in 1963.[15][16]
Development of two production designs for the army's MGM-52 Lance short-range missile began in July 1964, the W63 at Livermore and the W64 at Los Alamos. Both entered phase three testing in July 1964, and the W64 was cancelled in favor of the W63 in September 1964. The W63 was in turn cancelled in November 1965 in favor of the W70 (Mod 0), a conventional design.[15] By this time, the same concepts were being used to develop warheads for the Sprint missile, an anti-ballistic missile (ABM), with Livermore designing the W65 and Los Alamos the W66. Both entered phase three testing in October 1965, but the W65 was cancelled in favor of the W66 in November 1968. Testing of the W66 was carried out in the late 1960s, and entered production in June 1974,[15] the first neutron bomb to do so. Approximately 120 were built, with about 70 of these being on active duty during 1975 and 1976 as part of the Safeguard Program. When that program was shut down they were placed in storage, and eventually decommissioned in the early 1980s.[15]
Development of ER warheads for Lance continued, but in the early 1970s attention had turned to using modified versions of the W70, the W70 Mod 3.[15] Development was subsequently postponed by President Jimmy Carter in 1978 following protests against his administration's plans to deploy neutron warheads to ground forces in Europe.[17] On November 17, 1978, in a test the USSR detonated its first similar-type bomb.[18] President Ronald Reagan restarted production in 1981.[17] The Soviet Union renewed a propaganda campaign against the US's neutron bomb in 1981 following Reagan's announcement. In 1983 Reagan then announced the Strategic Defense Initiative, which surpassed neutron bomb production in ambition and vision and with that, neutron bombs quickly faded from the center of the public's attention.[18]
Attempted warhead replacement programs
Initial Enhanced Gun caliber
W48 W82 155 mm
W33 W79 203mm
Three types of enhanced radiation weapons (ERW) were deployed by the United States.[19] The W66 warhead, for the anti-ICBM Sprint missile system, was deployed in 1975 and retired the next year, along with the missile system. The W70 Mod 3 warhead was developed for the short-range, tactical MGM-52 Lance missile, and the W79 Mod 0 was developed for nuclear artillery shells. The latter two types were retired by President George H. W. Bush in 1992, following the end of the Cold War.[20][21] The last W70 Mod 3 warhead was dismantled in 1996,[22] and the last W79 Mod 0 was dismantled by 2003, when the dismantling of all W79 variants was completed.[23]
According to the Cox Report, as of 1999 the United States had never deployed a neutron weapon. The nature of this statement is not clear; it reads "The stolen information also includes classified design information for an enhanced radiation weapon (commonly known as the "neutron bomb"), which neither the United States, nor any other nation, has ever deployed."[24] However, the fact that neutron bombs had been produced by the US was well known at this time and part of the public record. Cohen suggests the report is playing with the definitions; while the US bombs were never deployed to Europe, they remained stockpiled in the US.[25]
In addition to the two superpowers, France and China are known to have tested neutron or enhanced radiation bombs. France conducted an early test of the technology in 1967[26] and tested an "actual" neutron bomb in 1980.[27] China conducted a successful test of neutron bomb principles in 1984 and a successful test of a neutron bomb in 1988. However, neither of those countries chose to deploy neutron bombs. Chinese nuclear scientists stated before the 1988 test that China had no need for neutron bombs, but it was developed to serve as a "technology reserve", in case the need arose in the future.[28]
In August, 1999, the Indian government disclosed that India was capable of producing a neutron bomb.[29]
Although no country is currently known to deploy them in an offensive manner, all thermonuclear dial-a-yield warheads that have about 10 kiloton and lower as one dial option, with a considerable fraction of that yield derived from fusion reactions, can be considered able to be neutron bombs in use, if not in name. The only country definitely known to deploy dedicated (that is, not dial-a-yield) neutron warheads for any length of time is the Soviet Union/Russia,[30] which inherited the USSR's neutron warhead equipped ABM-3 Gazelle missile program. This ABM system contains at least 68 neutron warheads with a 10 kiloton yield each and it has been in service since 1995, with inert missile testing approximately every other year since then (2014). The system is designed to destroy incoming endoatmospheric level nuclear warheads aimed at Moscow and other targets and is the lower-tier/last umbrella of the A-135 anti-ballistic missile system (NATO reporting name: ABM-3).[7]
{By 1984, according to Mordechai Vanunu, Israel was mass-producing neutron bombs.[31]}
Considerable controversy arose in the US and Western Europe following a June 1977 Washington Post exposé describing US government plans to purchase the bomb. The article focused on the fact that it was the first weapon specifically intended to kill humans with radiation.[32][33] Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory director Harold Brown and Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev both described neutron bombs as a "capitalist bomb", because it was designed to destroy people while preserving property.[34][35][need quotation to verify] Science fiction author and commentator Isaac Asimov also stated[relevant? – discuss] that "Such a neutron bomb or N bomb seems desirable to those who worry about property and hold life cheap."[36][37]
Use
The 1979 Soviet/Warsaw Pact invasion plan, "Seven Days to the River Rhine" to seize West Germany. Soviet analysts had correctly assumed that the NATO response would be to use regular tactical nuclear weapons to stop such a massive Warsaw Pact invasion.[38] According to proponents, neutron bombs would blunt an invasion by Soviet tanks and armored vehicles without causing as much damage or civilian deaths as the older nuclear weapons would.[39] Neutron bombs would have been used if the REFORGER conventional response of NATO to the invasion was too slow or ineffective.[40][41]
Neutron bombs are purposely designed with explosive yields lower than other nuclear weapons. Since neutrons are scattered and absorbed by air,[2] neutron radiation effects drop off rapidly with distance in air. As such, there is a sharper distinction, relative to thermal effects, between areas of high lethality and areas with minimal radiation doses.[3] All high yield (more than c. 10 kiloton) nuclear bombs, such as the extreme example of a device that derived 97% of its energy from fusion, the 50 megaton Tsar Bomba, are not able to radiate sufficient neutrons beyond their lethal blast range when detonated as a surface burst or low altitude air burst and so are no longer classified as neutron bombs, thus limiting the yield of neutron bombs to a maximum of about 10 kilotons. The intense pulse of high-energy neutrons generated by a neutron bomb is the principal killing mechanism, not the fallout, heat or blast.
The inventor of the neutron bomb, Sam Cohen, criticized the description of the W70 as a neutron bomb since it could be configured to yield 100 kilotons:
the W-70 ... is not even remotely a "neutron bomb." Instead of being the type of weapon that, in the popular mind, "kills people and spares buildings" it is one that both kills and physically destroys on a massive scale. The W-70 is not a discriminate weapon, like the neutron bomb—which, incidentally, should be considered a weapon that "kills enemy personnel while sparing the physical fabric of the attacked populace, and even the populace too."[42]
Although neutron bombs are commonly believed to "leave the infrastructure intact", with current designs that have explosive yields in the low kiloton range,[43] detonation in (or above) a built-up area would still cause a sizable degree of building destruction, through blast and heat effects out to a moderate radius, albeit considerably less destruction, than when compared to a standard nuclear bomb of the exact same total energy release or "yield".[44]
U.S. Army M110 howitzers in a 1984 REFORGER staging area before transport. Variants of this "dual capable"[45] nuclear artillery howitzer would launch the W79 neutron bomb.[46]
The Warsaw Pact tank strength was over twice that of NATO, and Soviet deep battle doctrine was likely to be to use this numerical advantage to rapidly sweep across continental Europe if the Cold War ever turned hot. Any weapon that could break up their intended mass tank formation deployments and force them to deploy their tanks in a thinner, more easily dividable manner,[4] would aid ground forces in the task of hunting down solitary tanks and using anti-tank missiles against them,[47] such as the contemporary M47 Dragon and BGM-71 TOW missiles, of which NATO had hundreds of thousands.[48]
Rather than making extensive preparations for battlefield nuclear combat in Central Europe, "The Soviet military leadership believed that conventional superiority provided the Warsaw Pact with the means to approximate the effects of nuclear weapons and achieve victory in Europe without resort to those weapons."[49]
Neutron bombs, or more precisely, enhanced [neutron] radiation weapons were also to find use as strategic anti-ballistic missile weapons,[44] and in this role they are believed to remain in active service within Russia's Gazelle missile.[30]
Effects
Wood frame house in 1953 nuclear test, 5 pounds per square inch (psi) overpressure, full collapse. Although neutron bombs, such as that fitted on the MGM-52 Lance missile would cause similar levels of destruction as depicted here within the zone were ~1970s tank crews would also be incapacitated by neutron radiation. When compared to the range of destruction that would be caused by the comparatively higher yield conventional nuclear weapons that it supplanted (e.g., MGR-1 Honest John), which had been needed to deliver the same range and intensity of neutron dose to neutralize tank crews, the range of civilian destruction and amount of fission product fallout generated by a neutron bomb is far more constrained.[50] This would spare the destruction of West Germany more than would otherwise be the case.
Upon detonation, a near-ground airburst of a 1 kiloton neutron bomb would produce a large blast wave and a powerful pulse of both thermal radiation and ionizing radiation, and non-ionizing radiation in the form of fast (14.1 MeV) neutrons. The thermal pulse would cause third degree burns to unprotected skin out to approximately 500 meters. The blast would create at least 4.6 psi out to a radius of 600 meters, which would severely damage all non-reinforced concrete structures. At the conventional effective combat range against modern main battle tanks and armored personnel carriers (< 690–900 m), the blast from a 1 kt neutron bomb would destroy or damage to the point of non-usability of almost all un-reinforced civilian buildings.
Using neutron bombs to stop an enemy armored attack by rapidly incapacitating crews with a dose of 8000+ rads of radiation[51] would require exploding large numbers of them to blanket the enemy forces, destroying all normal civilian buildings within c. 600 meters of the immediate area.[51][52] Neutron activation from the explosions could make many building materials in the city radioactive, such as zinc coated steel/galvanized steel (see area denial use below).
Because liquid-filled objects like the human body are resistant to gross overpressure, the 4–5 psi blast overpressure would cause very few direct casualties at a range of c. 600 m. The powerful winds produced by this overpressure, however, could throw bodies into objects or throw debris at high velocity, including window glass, both with potentially lethal results. Casualties would be highly variable depending on surroundings, including potential building collapses.[53]
The pulse of neutron radiation would cause immediate and permanent incapacitation to unprotected outdoor humans in the open out to 900 meters,[9] with death occurring in one or two days. The median lethal dose (LD50) of 600 rads would extend to between 1350 and 1400 meters for those unprotected and outdoors,[51] where approximately half of those exposed would die of radiation sickness after several weeks.
A human residing within, or simply shielded by, at least one concrete building with walls and ceilings 30 cm (12 in) thick, or alternatively of damp soil 24 inches thick, would receive a neutron radiation exposure reduced by a factor of 10.[54][55] Even near ground zero, basement sheltering or buildings with similar radiation shielding characteristics would drastically reduce the radiation dose.[56]
Furthermore, the neutron absorption spectrum of air is disputed by some authorities, and depends in part on absorption by hydrogen from water vapor. Thus, absorption might vary exponentially with humidity, making neutron bombs far more deadly in desert climates than in humid ones.[51]
Effectiveness in modern anti-tank role
The neutron cross section and absorption probability in barns of the two natural boron isotopes found in nature (top curve is for 10 B and bottom curve for 11 B. As neutron energy increases to 14 MeV, the absorption effectiveness, in general, decreases. Thus, for boron-containing armor to be effective, fast neutrons must first be slowed by another element by neutron scattering.
The questionable effectiveness of ER weapons against modern tanks is cited as one of the main reasons that these weapons are no longer fielded or stockpiled. With the increase in average tank armor thickness since the first ER weapons were fielded, tank armor protection approaches the level where tank crews are now almost fully protected from radiation effects. Thus, for an ER weapon to incapacitate a modern tank crew through irradiation, the weapon must now be detonated at such a close proximity to the tank that the nuclear explosion's blast would now be equally effective at incapacitating it and its crew.[57] However this assertion was regarded as dubious in a reply in 1986[58] by a member of the Royal Military College of Science as neutron radiation from a 1 kiloton neutron bomb would incapacitate the crew of a tank with a protection factor of 35 out to a range of 280 meters, but the incapacitating blast range, depending on the exact weight of the tank, is much less, from 70 to 130 meters. However although the author did note that effective neutron absorbers and neutron poisons such as boron carbide can be incorporated into conventional armor and strap-on neutron moderating hydrogenous material (substances containing hydrogen atoms), such as explosive reactive armor, can both increase the protection factor, the author holds that in practice combined with neutron scattering, the actual average total tank area protection factor is rarely higher than 15.5 to 35.[59] According to the Federation of American Scientists, the neutron protection factor of a "tank" can be as low as 2,[2] without qualifying whether the statement implies a light tank, medium tank, or main battle tank.
A composite high density concrete, or alternatively, a laminated graded-Z shield, 24 units thick of which 16 units are iron and 8 units are polyethylene containing boron (BPE), and additional mass behind it to attenuate neutron capture gamma rays, is more effective than just 24 units of pure iron or BPE alone, due to the advantages of both iron and BPE in combination. Iron is effective in slowing down/scattering high-energy neutrons in the 14-MeV energy range and attenuating gamma rays, while the hydrogen in polyethylene is effective in slowing down these now slower fast neutrons in the few MeV range, and boron 10 has a high absorption cross section for thermal neutrons and a low production yield of gamma rays when it absorbs a neutron.[60][61][62][63] The Soviet T72 tank, in response to the neutron bomb threat, is cited as having fitted a boronated[64] polyethylene liner, which has had its neutron shielding properties simulated.[55][65]
The radiation weighting factor for neutrons of various energy has been revised over time and certain agencies have different weighting factors, however despite the variation amongst the agencies, from the graph, for a given energy, A fusion neutron (14.1 MeV) although more energetic, is less biologically harmful as rated in Sieverts, than a fission generated thermal neutron or a fusion neutron slowed to that energy, c. 0.8 MeV.
However, some tank armor material contains depleted uranium (DU), common in the US's M1A1 Abrams tank, which incorporates steel-encased depleted uranium armor,[66] a substance that will fast fission when it captures a fast, fusion-generated neutron, and thus on fissioning will produce fission neutrons and fission products embedded within the armor, products which emit among other things, penetrating gamma rays. Although the neutrons emitted by the neutron bomb may not penetrate to the tank crew in lethal quantities, the fast fission of DU within the armor could still ensure a lethal environment for the crew and maintenance personnel by fission neutron and gamma ray exposure[dubious – discuss],[67] largely depending on the exact thickness and elemental composition of the armor—information usually hard to attain. Despite this, Ducrete—which has an elemental composition similar to, but not identical to the ceramic second generation heavy metal Chobham armor of the Abrams tank—is an effective radiation shield, to both fission neutrons and gamma rays due to it being a graded Z material.[68][69] Uranium, being about twice as dense as lead, is thus nearly twice as effective at shielding gamma ray radiation per unit thickness.[70]
Use against ballistic missiles
As an anti-ballistic missile weapon, the first fielded ER warhead, the W66, was developed for the Sprint missile system as part of the Safeguard Program to protect United States cities and missile silos from incoming Soviet warheads by damaging their electronic components with the intense neutron flux.[44] Ionization greater than 5,000 rads in silicon chips delivered over seconds to minutes will degrade the function of semiconductors for long periods.[71] Due to the rarefied atmosphere encountered high above the earth at the most likely intercept point of an incoming warhead by a neutron bomb/warhead – the terminal phase point (10–30 km) of the incoming warhead's flight—the neutrons generated by a mid- to high-altitude nuclear explosion (HANE) have an even greater range than that encountered after a low altitude air burst. In the high altitude case, there is a lower density of air molecules that produces, an appreciable reduction in the air shielding effect/half-value thickness.
However, although this neutron transparency advantage attained only increases at increased altitudes, neutron effects lose importance in the exoatmospheric environment, being overtaken by the range of another effect of a nuclear detonation, at approximately the same altitude as the end of the incoming missile's boost phase (c. 150 km), ablation producing soft X-rays are the chief nuclear effects threat to the survival of incoming missiles and warheads rather than neutrons.[72] A factor exploited by the other warhead of the Safeguard Program, the enhanced (X-ray) radiation W71 and its USSR/Russian counterpart, the warhead on the A-135 Gorgon missile.
Another method by which neutron radiation can be used to destroy incoming nuclear warheads is by serving as an intense neutron generator and to thus initiate fission in the incoming warhead's fissionable components by fast fission[citation needed], potentially causing the incoming warhead to prematurely detonate in a fizzle if within sufficient proximity, but in most likely interception ranges, requiring only that enough fissionable material in the warhead fissions to interfere with the functioning of the incoming warhead when it is later fuzed to explode (see related physics: Subcritical reactor).
Lithium-6 hydride (Li6H) is cited as being used as a countermeasure to reduce the vulnerability and "harden" nuclear warheads from the effects of externally generated neutrons.[73][74] Radiation hardening of the warhead's electronic components as a countermeasure to high altitude neutron warheads somewhat reduces the range that a neutron warhead could successfully cause an unrecoverable glitch by the transient radiation effects on electronics (TREE) effects.[75][76]
Use as an area denial weapon
In November 2012, during the planning stages of Operation Hammer of God, British Labour peer Lord Gilbert suggested that multiple enhanced radiation reduced blast (ERRB) warheads could be detonated in the mountain region of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border to prevent infiltration.[77] He proposed to warn the inhabitants to evacuate, then irradiate the area, making it unusable and impassable.[78] Used in this manner, the neutron bomb(s), regardless of burst height, would release neutron activated casing materials used in the bomb, and depending on burst height, create radioactive soil activation products.
In much the same fashion as the area denial effect resulting from fission product (the substances that make up most fallout) contamination in an area following a conventional surface burst nuclear explosion, as considered in the Korean War by Douglas MacArthur, it would thus be a form of radiological warfare—with the difference that neutron bombs produce half, or less, of the quantity of fission products relative to the same-yield pure fission bomb. Radiological warfare with neutron bombs that rely on fission primaries would thus still produce fission fallout, albeit a comparatively cleaner and shorter lasting version of it in the area if air bursts were used, as little to no fission products would be deposited on the direct immediate area, instead becoming diluted global fallout.
However the most effective use of a neutron bomb with respect to area denial would be to encase it in a thick shell of material that could be neutron activated, and use a surface burst. In this manner the neutron bomb would be turned into a salted bomb; a case of zinc-64, produced as a byproduct of depleted zinc oxide enrichment, would for example probably be the most attractive for military use, as when activated, the zinc-65 so formed is a gamma emitter, with a half life of 244 days.[79]
Maintenance[edit]
Neutron bombs-warheads require considerable maintenance for their abilities, requiring some tritium for fusion boosting[citation needed] and tritium in the secondary stage (yielding more neutrons), in amounts on the order of a few tens of grams[80] (10–30 grams[81] estimated). Because tritium has a relatively short half-life of 12.32 years (after that time, half the tritium has decayed), it is necessary to replenish it periodically to keep the bomb effective. (For instance: to maintain a constant level of 24 grams of tritium in a warhead, about 1.3 grams per bomb per year[82] must be supplied.) Moreover, tritium decays into helium-3, which absorbs neutrons[83] and will thus further reduce the bomb's neutron yield.
Keep in mind that the alliance with Israel will have a significant effect both ways. The AC now has access to the most effective antitank weapon in very large numbers and the only real advantage Russian has over NATO is it's huge number of tanks stationed to defend it's Wastern borders.
Missiles from North Korea climb to the top of their trajectory and arch toward the States.
The resident authorized use of nuclear weapons by the fleet in the Sea of Japan. Specifically against the North Korean capital and against the heavily armed no man's land between the North and South.
The leader of China uses his hotline to call the US President and warn him against use of nuclear weapons in response, to tell him that the Chinese will deal with the problem themselves.
The President refuses to be distracted by foreign callers and does not take the call. He is certain he has done the only thing possible. He believes an already depleted US cannot fail to respond or it will look weak and be attacked by everyone.
The Missile sub with the US Fleet in the Sea of japan launches it's first missile.
North Korean armed forces send planes and missiles at the US fleet.
US attack subs sink N. Korean warships. US destroyers sink N. Korean subs. US planes engage the N. Korean forces over the seas .
The US sub launches it second mIssile. N. Korean defenses shoots down the first US Missile. But it has already launched it's "bouncing Betty" land mine load of warheads.
"Nuclear devices" fall on P'yongyang.
The US ABM compliment has been damaged by the ice and cold. Most of them work and intercept eight of the missiles from Asia. Two get through. San Fransisco and LA are hit by 20 kilotons of blast.
Nearby in California, there is a supervolcano lying somewhat dormant in Long Valley. Nuclear explosions on the faultline would have an undetermined effect on . Experts disagree except for one point: no one thinks the result would be good
Chinese territory suffers fallout immediately. The warheads were not ERW.
What has begun is now unstoppable. The war horseman hits full gallop.
"You fight the good fight and then one morning you wake up and realize all your world is Satan's little helper."
David (Anti human, Anti Christian movie) Atomic Blond
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