mrdownIran could develop nuclear suicide bomb vests, claims JD Vance
If lemmy had an equivilent of retweeting, I would.
I don’t disagree, but let me direct your attention to Exhibit A:
She isn’t wrong, with only one addition; he will take down the entire world as well. Clearly.
I agree, he is a type of person to anchor on to anything that can sustain his own egocentric power. In fact, the time ticks till he decides that releasing another batch of Epstein files would prove advantageous to distract people from the genocide and war crimes he is commiting.
Valmond
Doug HollandI do hope it’s not a competition.
talNuclear terrorism might be a thing, but I seriously doubt that the easiest way to do it is nuclear suicide vests. Miniaturizing nuclear warheads is a pain. If you were going to do something like that, you’d be better off doing something akin to a truck bomb.
Much more likely would be a dirty bomb. Just a regular bomb with some nuclear material that it spreads. The nuclear material isn’t the bomb itself, but used exclusively for the exposure effects.
I’m not that surprised. Radiation poisoning is a special kind of torture for EVERYONE. Shit would immediately invalidate any goodwill or sympathy for whomever uses them.
It would also be dangerous and expensive for the people making it.
It also wouldn’t be much more lethal than a bomb of equivalent mass. If you’re close enough to get a lethal dose of polonium or w/e, you’re probably also getting a lethal dose of shrapnel.
I’m kind of skepitical of the “dirty bomb” idea. Frankly, it sounds like a load of bullshit, because of the πr2 thing. Namely, if you want to irradiate and area to a sufficient extent to cause immediate radiation sickness, then keeping it concentrated is your best bet. A very small bomb, at most.
The other extreme would be a huge bomb to spread radioactive material over, say, a city. At which point it barely raises the radioactivity above background levels. Or at least doesn’t cause immediately apparent effects. Imagine terrorists issuing a statement like, “Sure, it doesn’t seem so bad TODAY, but wait ‘til you see the slight bump in cancer rates in 20 years.”
Indeed, on looking it up, I see that the experts are skeptical, too, and tests conducted by Israel didn’t find much effectiveness. That could be why we haven’t seen one used.
Yeah, but destruction and loss of life isn’t the point. Terror is. If a dirty bomb was detonated I’m a city, and it contained enough nuclear material to say, cause a 10% jump in cancer outlooks over a 20 year period, that’s not the point.
The point is that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission needs to come out, shut a city down, do all sorts of testing, clean the shit out of everything, and disrupt everyone’s lives. The fear is the point, and as a fear-causing weapon, radiation is in a unique class all its own.
For that matter, then you don’t need to put any radioactive material in it at all, but just claim it.
BlueÆtherI think the value would be the ‘terror’ in the general public if a dirty bomb went in downtown in any major US city.
I think that would make for an ideal terrorist weapon for use against the US
Fuck - I’m probably on a watch list again. I think I was flagged post 9/11 for online chat around laptops, bottles of water and vodka. Every flight I took from 2000 to about 2007 I was pulled out and patted down/bag searched/turn laptop on/…
Honestly, the problem with a dirty bomb isn’t the cancer rates or w.e, its the sheer amount of propaganda that has gone into scaring people over nuclear energy. Yes, the propaganda is mostly to stop nuclear reactors to force reliance on oil, but its still there.
I used to use a nuclear soil density gauge. The gauge was not at all scary, I could use it as a seat for a whole year, and it would have a minimal effect on my lifetime cancer rates.
But no matter how many times I explained it, as soon as I said “Nuclear Gauge” people got scared.
“Nuclear” has become a scare word, so a nuclear dirty bomb is terrifying to people.
WesDym@SwingingTheLamp Then you don't understand the concept, and that's okay. Lots of people don't understand lots of stuff. I don't understand why sports is such a big deal. But I don't call it bullshit for that reason.
A dirty bomb is a terrorist weapon. It's meant to cause terror. You're focusing on practical matters that are not important to that goal. OF COURSE it's a shitty bomb. That's why no govts make them. From a practical standpoint, it's shit. But from a terror standpoint, it's great.
Geez, you don’t have to be such an ass about it. The commenter was talking about sources of radioactive materials, which is irrelevant.
@SwingingTheLamp They were being full of themselves. When you make comments in public, you elect to expose yourself to possible criticism.
You'll get over it. Get some sleep.
Yeah, but you chose to be a massive dick about it. A couple of other folks commented along similar lines, but respectfully. That’s on you.
@SwingingTheLamp Take 30 days, Capt. Self-Righteous.
Shit now I’m imagining Tony Stark miniaturizing a nuclear warhead and immediately going “this would make a really great suicide vest”
Iran didn’t have to develop the tech itself. Clearly they have captured a Predator.
@tal Definitely. A functional fission device is a major technical challenge, even for the most developed countries. A dirty bomb is much easier, and much more likely.
But, the real world is not a game, and powers that could do that almost certainly know it would not be worth it.
The real fear is of fringe terrorists groups doing it, because they're not as likely to be sensible about it, and some of them are crazy extremists who think some god is on their side.
TropicalDingdongAlso known as a snuke
@HikingVet The W54, developed in the 1950s, was a fully functional fission device weighing 23.1-26.5 kg, and had versions that one person could carry.
A dirty bomb could be much smaller and lighter, and would definitely fit in a briefcase.
The actual direct harm it might cause depends on many factors, especially immediate circulation of its products, but it's more than enough to terrorize a whole city, which is its purpose.
I wonder if they make them to fit couch fuckers.
ParagoneThere is a minimum-amount of fission-fuel required, AND there is a minimum-amount of conventional-explosives required to compress the fission-fuel until it goes supercritical.
That detonator isn’t going to be small-enough to hide in a vest.
Absolute disinformation.
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M137I really wonder what happened when making that couch. The left one being on piece and then the right one having a seam between the bottom and the “pillow”. Thinking it’s either AI or some home project that didn’t pan out as planned.
It is stupid for even more reasons than that. I’ve thought about it back when North Korea had pretend nuclear suicide bombers march on their military parade.
Even if somehow they found cream one in a backpack that is carriable by a person, there is no advantage whatsoever given the blast radius. You will have to use a vehicle of sorts to get near the enemy and more importantly away from your friendlies anyway. Whatever distance you can cover on foot afterwards won’t make much of a difference. Might as well make it vehicle borne.
I mean, the W54 was small enough to be carried by a person and I don’t think anyone wants even a 1kt device going off near them. So it’s within the realm of possibility even if it does strain credulity as an actual goal Iran was working toward (let alone a solid justification for this bullshit).
finallymadeanaccountI don’t think anyone wants even a 1kt device going off near them
Pussies.
“watch closely, because I’m only going to show you once”
He’s talking about a dirty bomb. And, technically, that is quite possible and doable by the Iranians.
It’s a stupid assertion, yes; but the engineering is plausible.
Do you actually need conventional explosives? I had the impression all they do is reliably stick the big hunks of radioactive material together in a big bomb that needs to be delivered at high speeds and detonate automatically. Wouldn’t it be enough to quickly shove a cylinder into a bigger core, perhaps with a motor or even a tensioned spring?
That of course doesn’t waive the issue of the amount of fissile material, or the fact it needs to be all put together (you can’t spread it around a vest)
dual_sport_dork 🐧🗡️It’s not just reliably sticking the two subcritical halves of fissile material together, but keeping them there via inertia long enough for enough of the mass to go critical before the much more minor reactions blow them apart via melting/vaporizing the nearest surfaces.
If you had to halves of an atomic bomb core and just clacked them together mechanically you’d wind up with a lot of heat and a big old pulse of radiation, and if you were the one holding this device you probably would indeed die. But there would be no nuclear explosion in the sense we think of it as compared to actual functional nuclear weapons. At best you’d wind up with an energy release equivalent to a few pounds of TNT, which would be much easier to replicate with… a few pounds of TNT.
This has been explored to death, e.g. via the Demon Core experiments, where a critical mass of fissile material was brought together via manual means and the end result was the release of enough radiation to kill at least two people (albeit certainly not killing them instantly) but no explosion.
This has been explored to death, e.g. via the Demon Core experiments
If I’m not mistaken, in case of the demon core accidents, the reaction was always interrupted by the experimenter frantically separating the two halves, right? Doesn’t mean it would detonate, but using it as an example of why it wouldn’t doesn’t seem to check out if I’m remembering correctly.
The point is that even bringing the parts together until a critical state was reached, the material did not explode. If the Demon Core were left in its critical state like that but otherwise undisturbed, it surely would have melted but would not have gone off like an atom bomb.
To my understanding, you can’t really do more than bring the parts together in a compact arrangement and keep them like that, so if the demon core would stay together (and not, say, get blown apart by the release of energy), then the issue would be a lack of fissile material (or reflectors), no?
See also an image of a nuclear bomb design (I think Little Boy) from Wikipedia, which illustrates the idea of sliding a rod of fissile material into a hollow cylinder, though the bomb did it in reverse. I think the design might be obsolete due to inefficiency, and it might need the tough shell to hold it together (and act as a neutron reflector).
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edgemaster72As if they would ever be concerned about potential violence in schools
inari