Suitcase nuke? This is jaw-dropping.

[Deja Q]

I just don't believe the incredulity of the following website! http://www.nationalterroralert.com/readyguide/suitcasenuke.htm

All I did was google "suitcase nuke" and this was the first page to show up.

Now DUers have been saying that nuke weapons are very heavy and would not fit in a suitcase.

The worst part is, if I could spend 5.2 seconds doing a google search using the most simplisic terms, anybody else can. And they might have both the means and the hatred necessary. I have neither, but I am shocked that this website constitutes "freedom of speech" whereas "adbusters" can't even pay for an advert that promotes "No shopping day" after Thanksgiving. :crazy:

As Diana Trent once said, "Please, God. Get me out of this cartoon!"

(That's not the actual quote, so I'll just watch a few eps and look it up. :D Lord knows I need to, this stuff is :scared: )

[mike_c]

1. wow, that's a cheery little website....

:nuke:

[UL_Approved]

2. Most suitcases couldn't handle it

Uranium and plutonium are among the densest materials known. They are more dense than gold or lead. You would need a reinforced metal suitcase to carry the payload. The possibility of such a device is real, though. It would be hard to transport, however, due to the weight. If officials are paying attention, they might see two or three guys carrying one suitcase. Kinda slapstick, but a real situation like that could occur.

[Deja Q]

3. But here's the fun part: Anyone who immigrates here can get the materials:

And with Yucca Valley being approved as a quick and cheap means to haul nuke material...

Oh, it can be done. And nothing need come from outside the US' borders.

Cheery, huh? :scared:

That is an excellent point of yours, though. A strong person would be necessary to make the suitcase look genuine.

[DrWeird]

5. Hmm.

Can you just walk into the corner drugstore in Yucca Valley and by plutonium now?

[Deja Q]

7. No, but if college kids and sneak into airports and military bases...

They'll get into Yucca mountain too and do their humpty dance.

Nice try, but a strike. :-)

[DrWeird]

12. That's true.

Nuclear weapons and waste only existed in the United States since they opened up Yucca Mountain.

:eyes:

[MrUnderhill]

6. It isn't nearly that simple.

Anyone physics student can draw you a picture like that describing what the bomb would look like... but actually producing one is a whole other level of precision.

And you can't produce one out of radioactive waste... you need highly refined ("weapons grade") materials.

[Deja Q]

10. That is reassuring, except

radioactive waste can still be used as a weapon. Last I read, it can be used to spread radiation, though the actual explosion is not nuke-related. I think it's called a "dirty bomb" or something to that effect.

So a danger still does exist. Just not the easy to reassure type.

[DrWeird]

15. Nuclear weapons and "dirty bombs" are two different things.

Nuclear weapons really destructive.

[Deja Q]

17. Dirty bombs still do damage, & the repercussions on living matter is vile.

So I doubt any big buildings would be hit by a portable nuke, but a dirty bomb will still do a considerable amount of hurt.

[DrWeird]

22. Well, sure.

So would a stick of dynamite. Still, a bad comparison.

[MrUnderhill]

18. Sure... but there are lots of "weapons".

Some of the explosives described in the article... while "nuclear" in nature, are not as big as people think.

People hear "nuclear" and assume it would take out a whole city. When in fact, some of these would barely take out a few city blocks. Not that a few blocks can't be devestating.

"Dirty" bombs are also overplayed. They aren't going to poison thousands and thousands of people. In most cases... if you aren't injured by the blast itself (standard explosive), you're unlikely to be harmed by the radiation. They are truly "weapons of terror" in the sense that they frighten people... though they aren't quite as dangerous as all the effort to get them would indicate.

Frankly, the fertilizer and fuel bomb that took out the Oklahoma federal office building is the kind of thing that people can get their hands on more readily than some of these "scarier" weapons that could do less damage.

[lojasmo]

4. 10Kg=22 Lbs.

Easily held in a wheeled suitcase.

[Deja Q]

8. And 22lbs is the weight of a typical PC. EASILY carried by many.

Especially if they have the physical training down pat.

[MrUnderhill]

9. 22lbs of plutonium, maybe

Plus sheathing... plus the explosive... plus electronics... plus the slug... plus the barrel...

This would likely be well over 100 lbs.

[Deja Q]

13. Car bombs then? Or why the sheathing? Suicide bombers won't care.

Unless EVERYBODY has high powered personal geiger counters, it is impossible to detect such a bomb before it goes 'poof'.

Electronics is nothing. One circuit board and some chips - easily under 1 pound.

[MrUnderhill]

21. A nuclear explosion is not an automatic thing.

When you're talking about sub-critical masses of plutonium, your explosion is caused by precise (and I mean PRECISE) application of force slamming two bodies together. The equipment to do that is not light. We're talking highly calibrated, very heavy material to channel the blast (of the triggering explosive) in exactly the right way.

We've made nuclear warheads for artillery shells that have gotten quite light (though not like 100 lbs), but you're talking about yields that don't noticeibly exceed some conventional explosives. You get a really big bang that LOOKS like a mushroom cloud... but several large bombs do that now.

[DrWeird]

14. I thought I read somewhere...

that the smallest nuclear device every manufactured still weight around 800 lbs.

[Ardee]

28. Please research

The ingredients and the mechanisms necesary to cause a nuclear explosion are all very, very heavy. Far, far heavier than 100 lbs. Suitcase nukes are an urban myth and those who fear them actually further the aims of this administration in keeping people docile through fear.

Much more likely would be the detonation of a so-called dirty bomb, or a true nuclear device in a ship or aircraft....sleep tight.

[MrUnderhill]

30. I'm sorry... that's not true.

Notice I've been making the same argument, but it isn't that case that they must be THAT heavy.


We've developed nuclear warheads that come in under 100 pounds. They don't pack much of a "bang" by comparison to what people think of when they think "nuke"... but battlefield nukes were as light as 75lbs.

Try googling the "Davy Crocket"


Suitcase nukes are not an "urban myth"... they're just FAR harder to create than people assume. Thinking you can just buy what you need at the A&P is a huge stretch. The precision involved (and the ongoing maintenance that would make the old Russian suitcase weapons next to useless in terrorist hands) combine to make it extremely unlikely that they are currently a threat.

[MadHound]

31. You're correct friend

However it would be a suicide mission to carry one of these puppies unshielded. And the shielding needed to make them safe makes them prohibitively heavy.

[MrUnderhill]

32. I agree... but they have no shortage of people willing to suicide.

n/t

[MadHound]

33. True that, but there's something else to take into consideration

If you are bringing one of those into the US, you're going to have to shield it for two reasons. One, so the mule doesn't die, or at least start showing symptoms of radioactive poisoning on the inbound trip. Secondly, you're going to have to shield it so that no potential radiation detectors will pick it up. This requires a great deal of shielding, so much so that it would make the case exceedingly heavy, to heavy for easy, hand held transport. Granted, not every point of entry into this country has radiation detectors, but the numbers are growing, so a potential terrorist really couldn't take that chance, at least not by air entry. And if you're going with land or sea entry, then you have to shield for the protection of the mule, can't have them keeling over from radiation sickness halfway through the trip. Again, it would make the case prohibitively heavy.

The best use for one of these is in a country that can be accessed by car. Throw the case in the shielded trunk until you get to your target, take it out, place it and leave. Long term travel logistics are just too hairy at this point for realistic consideration. Now cooking up one of these puppies over here is an entirely different matter.

[Ardee]

39. Thank you for the correction

I stand corrected....
"The W54 warhead used on the Davy Crockett weighed just 51 pounds and was the smallest and lightest fission bomb (implosion type) ever deployed by the United States, with a variable explosive yield of 0.01 kilotons (equivalent to 10 tons of TNT, or two to four times as powerful as the ammonium nitrate bomb which destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995), or 0.02 kilotons-1 kiloton. A 58.6 pound variant?the B54?was used in the Special Atomic Demolition Munition (SADM), a nuclear land mine deployed in Europe, South Korea, Guam, and the United States from 1964-1989. "

My assumption was from a 60 minutes piece some time after 9/11 in which they insisted that such a device, in existence in Russian arsenals, supposedly,was the size of a large foot locker.So it ain't just Dan Rather,huh?

[TwilightZone]

11. I guess that my thought in another thread wasn't as "wrong" as some

wanted me to believe.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=2739091&mesg_id=2739107&page=

And, you're right - hatred drives people to do completely irrational things. While we'd love to believe that an attack of this nature is impossible, the possibility exists. That being said, I have no idea how we'd stop it short of tightening up our borders, increasing inspections, etc.

[Deja Q]

16. Personal geiger counters, cell phones, personal responsibility.

1 and 2 are available.

But I've seen people look the other way when a crime is committed, if not flee. I do not believe that, should their personal counter go off, they'd do a damn thing, except leave to save their own skin.

[TwilightZone]

20. True. Though, that's assuming that you're far enough away to be

dealing with radiation/fallout and not the direct effects of the explosion.

Sorry, I don't mean to sound so pessimistic, but I grew up during the later stages of the cold war and wrote term papers, etc., about nuclear war, proliferation, disarmament, etc., so I've always been quite familiar with the topics. I think we tend to assume that an attack of this nature can't happen in our current society, but we shouldn't discount the possibility so easily.

As far as personal responsibility, you're exactly right - we're definitely in a me-me-me society, and it's only going to get worse under four more years of Bush.

[strategery blunder]

19. Meh. More government propaganda. Par for the course.

It's really sad when I'm this desensitized.x(

[Porcupine]

23. Davy Crockett Nuclear Rocket!!! We made 'em here first.

Check out this Davy Crockett

Isn't that fun? We made thousands of nuclear weapons that weighed less than 100 lbs. and distributed them all over Europe. Of course nobody like the Russians or the Chinese would have ever been able to reproduce our vastly superior 1965 technology, electronics and physics with say, a Macintosh G4 supercomputer.

Nah. We're safe really. I never see guys wandering around the gym with a 100 pound plate in each hand except when I go there.

[Raiden]

24. That website is bullshit!

Oh yeah, if you get exposed to radiation, just wash your clothes and get your stomach pumped. :eyes:


"DUCK AND COVER!!!!"

[VTMechEngr]

27. Actually, many people if not burned too badly...

or killed outright can survive if they reduce the radiation levels they are subjected too. You will get sick, but if you get out you will absorb a lot less and survive. Many people survived Hiroshima. That was a standard nuke like the one proposed on that webpage
(The non-hydrogen containing,non fusion making kind. This is what the old duck and cover lessons taught against as opposed to the newer Thermo-nuclear, your ashes kind.)
Also, a bomb small enough to fit in a suitcase would have a low yield, much like the old Nuke howitzer shells that were 1 Kilo-ton blasts each time. I believe Hiroshima was 6 Kilotons. If you are not in the immediate blast zone, you could survive.

[Silverhair]

34. Hiroshima was 20 KT. N/T

[SOS]

38. This site

enables anyone to see the effects of a 10kt blast in an American neighborhood.
This blast is one half the size of the Nagasaki bomb (20kt).
Just plug in your zip code to see the effects on your local community.
From the JFK School of Government at Harvard:
http://www.nuclearterrorism.org/blastmaps.html

[KnowerOfLogic]

25. Rumor has it that the Ruskies have had suitcase nukes planted

in America for a long time (during the cold war) to use against us just in case. I think that the longer the Iraq war goes on (and other US warmongering) the more likely it is that one of these will fall into the wrong hands.

[bhikkhu]

26. Fear Factor...

the powers that be have spent a great deal of time terrorizing everybody about how easy it is to build, transport, and detonate a nuke.

Don't forget - as long as you are afraid, you stay in line, they stay in power.

[KnowerOfLogic]

44. Oh, i'm not afraid, and i heard that rumor long before 9-11.

FWIW, i recently wrote a letter to the editor of my paper (which was published, since they publish all the letters) saying point blank,

"I couldn’t care less about terrorism and I’m sick and tired of hearing about it."

I continued...

"I have not lost a minute of sleep worrying about what Bin Laden is up to; I’m too busy worrying about how I’m going to pay my bills, and whether I’m going to find a better job, and what will happen if a I get sick, and how I’m going to be able to afford to retire, and on and on. The fact is that the average American’s chance of dying in a terrorist attack is infinitesimally smaller than their chance of dying prematurely in countless other ways that no one gives a second thought to."

I think that it is important that we sane people point out the irrationality of terror hysteria at every opportunity. As long as the nation remains terrorized, people are going to vote for the macho daddy figure.

[Silverhair]

35. By now they won't work.

Nukes need maintainence to be able to work. You couldn't put one up and expect it to be usable 5 years later, let alone 30 years later. A nuclear explosion, whether by implosion or gun style, is a PRECISE thing. However, I must state that I have not been around nukes in almost 30 years so I don't know about modern ones. General theory will not have changed, but some of the technology will have.

I do know that if the old Soviet Empire did place some backpack nukes in the USA during the cold war, then it is very doubtful that they would be capable of nuclear detonation now. I also doubt that they did that. Not that I think the USSR was nice - they weren't. But they were even more paranoid about nukes than we were. They would not have allowed a nuke and the ability to detonate it to be controlled by an agent in a foriegn country. They would have judged that there was too much risk of the agent using the nuke against the USSR.

[General Zod]

41. Suitcase nukes won't work unless you can enable the weapon

You have to have the codes to enable the nuke. Since the early 70's, most countries have Permissive Active Links on all nuclear weapons. You would have to know the code in order to enable the weapon. Without the proper code, the nuke is useless. You might be able to set off the conventional explosive, but not a nuclear detonation.

[MadHound]

29. Actually this is rather believable

The Soviet Union was claiming it had suitcase nukes before it broke up. It wouldn't suprise me that the plans for one, or the real thing were sold to various unsavory characters after the break up, Russia needed all of the money it could get.

And it isn't suprising that they publish general facts about how such a bomb is made. Hell, Readers Digest published a fairly extensive article back in the seventies on how a kid in Ohio made a bomb for a high school science project. There are the details needed to build such a bomb, just enough generalities to scare the masses.

I wouldn't want to be carrying one of these suckers, it would be a death sentence. Plutonium is highly radioactive, and the shielding required for health purposes would make such a device prohibitively heavy. One could only travel a short distance with it before irreperable harm was done.

[Vidar]

36. We had thousands of nuclear artillery shells--hmmm

[banana republican]

37. HOW TO BUILD A NUCLEAR BOMB IN YOUR KITCHEN

That was the name of a book I read in the late 60's you don't have to be a rocket scientist to build one of those things......

[serryjw]

40. MOOT argument....dirty bombs are not our problem........

BIO/CHEM is. It is easier to get the ingredients, can't be screened coming into the country and will do much more horrible damage.This is what keeps me up at night not dirty bombs.

[Warren DeMontague]

42. Because telling people not to shop is a more frightening concept

than a suitcase nuke to some folks.

[Warren DeMontague]

43. The only reassuring thing I can think of is,

nuclear weapons depend on science, which is something the dangerous fundamentalist nutjobs of both this and other countries reject--- or have a shitty grasp of, at best.

Of course, maybe they can all sit around and pray for the thing to work.