View Full Version : US's most powerful nuclear bomb being dismantled
http://news.yahoo.com/uss-most-powerful-nuclear-bomb-being-dismantled-071325260.html
It's amazing to think a device created nearly 50 years ago was still in existence given all the advances in technology. It would be thought this device would long ago have met the scrap heap. I remember very vividly watching the continuous television coverage of the Cuban Missile Crisis. I was 11 years old, a couple of months shy of my 12th birthday and, watching all the coverage and dire commentary, wondering if I would actually see my 12th birthday...
Skybird
10-25-11, 01:39 PM
The B53's disassembly ends the era of big megaton bombs, he said. The bombs' size helped compensate for their lack of accuracy. Today's bombs are smaller but more precise, reducing the amount of collateral damage, Kristensen said.
:06:
They seem to have plenty of black humour in Pantex.
AVGWarhawk
10-25-11, 01:49 PM
I'm thinking it is not the most powerful bomb either....:shifty:
Betonov
10-25-11, 02:00 PM
My reaction to any nuke being dissmantleded
:Kaleun_Cheers::Kaleun_Applaud:
Krauter
10-25-11, 02:17 PM
I'm thinking it is not the most powerful bomb either....:shifty:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_bomba
:D
Edit: Also..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B41_nuclear_bomb
Jimbuna
10-25-11, 02:24 PM
My reaction to any nuke being dissmantleded
:Kaleun_Cheers::Kaleun_Applaud:
Aye that :yep:
Herr-Berbunch
10-25-11, 02:24 PM
My reaction to any nuke being dissmantleded
:Kaleun_Cheers::Kaleun_Applaud:
Yeah, it's nice to know it's (hopefully) not going to be lethal any more, but seeing a detonation of such device would be totally awe inspiring, seen many videos in my previous career and they're all jaw-dropping things. :o
Betonov
10-25-11, 02:34 PM
Yeah, it's nice to know it's (hopefully) not going to be lethal any more, but seeing a detonation of such device would be totally awe inspiring, seen many videos in my previous career and they're all jaw-dropping things. :o
That little angel/devil thing on your shoulders, knowing how awesome these things are and realising they were made only for one thing :doh:
Yeah, it's nice to know it's (hopefully) not going to be lethal any more, but seeing a detonation of such device would be totally awe inspiring, seen many videos in my previous career and they're all jaw-dropping things.
Same here; I saw a great number of bomb test films during the sixties in school, including some directly from the pentagon archives in my senior year in high school (I took Jr. ROTC and our Army Sargeant had connections and could get us some rather interesting films and speakers for our classes). I do remember reading an article written by a news reporter in the 1980's who had witnessed, at ground level, quite a few above ground tests. He told in the article of one particular test of a newer, more powerful device. This particular test brought out the top Pentagon brass replete with uniforms festooned with ribbons to strut and crow about their newest "toy". Most of these VIPs had never seen an actual test in person before and had no real idea of what was to occur. The test went off and the veteran reporter turn back to see if he could get comments from the Pentagon brass and found most of them huddled on the far side of the observation bunker cowering in fear and awe... :DL
I think we owe a lot to nukes. I was always in the camp that added a postscript to the "ban the bomb!" idiots...
"Ban the bomb! (save the world for conventional warfare)"
Sans atomic weapons we'd certainly have ended up with WW3, IMHO. People seem to forget how very good at killing people we got during WW2 before nukes.
I'm not against dismantling devices that are no longer needed, but dismantling those that are needed is a different matter.
TLAM Strike
10-25-11, 03:56 PM
At times like this I'm reminded of Futurama:
Fry: This was our storage closet. My Dad spent years turning it into a bomb shelter.
Leela: [sadly] And yet you guys never had a single nuclear war.
Bender: [sadly] What a waste.
:03:
Platapus
10-25-11, 03:57 PM
I have almost fond memories working on the B-53/W-53. That was one big device. One literally had to climb inside of it to gain access to some of the components.
Lots of sharpy and pokey things. :yep:
One literally had to climb inside of it to gain access to some of the components.
I'd bet the last thing you'd want to hear is someone saying "Oops!"... :D
Sailor Steve
10-25-11, 04:24 PM
I'd bet the last thing you'd want to hear is someone saying "Oops!"... :D
Considering it would be the last thing you did hear, it might not be so bad. Not for long, anyway...:dead:
Osmium Steele
10-26-11, 07:28 AM
I have almost fond memories working on the B-53/W-53. That was one big device. One literally had to climb inside of it to gain access to some of the components.
Lots of sharpy and pokey things. :yep:
Of course, you can neither confirm, nor deny, the presence of any nuclear devices during your enlistment. :O:
Herr-Berbunch
10-26-11, 11:05 AM
I'd bet the last thing you'd want to hear is someone saying "Oops!"... :D
I'm sure there'd been numerous 'oops' occasions, as with all weapons, but the fusing/arming takes more than a drop from a forktruck, or a bash with a hammer - fortunately! :yep: I know that the RAF groundcrews in Germany in the '60s or '70s certainly dropped a couple. And everyone survived. :D
PS - that's not me, I'm only 37.
Osmium Steele
10-26-11, 11:13 AM
Iirc, there was an Air Force missile that caught fire and exploded in the silo, sending the W53 warhead some distance away, completely intact.
Task Force
10-26-11, 12:07 PM
Dismantle the nuke, and replace it with something more powerful, that's whats gonna happen.
In my opinion Nuclear weapons are the saviors of humanity, they are the only thing that has really kept us from having superpowers going to war. Chances are there will be no conventional WW3 till There is not a major threat of nuclear war. (or some country goes suicidal)
Platapus
10-26-11, 05:01 PM
I'd bet the last thing you'd want to hear is someone saying "Oops!"... :D
Actually the last thing you want someone to say, while working on a nuke, is "uh, which page are we on again?"
:o:o:o
Platapus
10-26-11, 05:11 PM
Iirc, there was an Air Force missile that caught fire and exploded in the silo, sending the W53 warhead some distance away, completely intact.
That was 19 Sep 80. Titan II Launch Complex 374-7 in Southside, AK.
The W-53 warhead was only thrown about 200 feet from the silo. What was more amazing is that the 700+ ton silo door was blown more than 600 feet. :o
Let us not forget Senior Airman David Livingston who died during the inspection the next morning after the wrench was dropped. :salute:
The metal casing around the W-53 looked like it was shrink-wrapped around the warhead. You could see the outline of the outer components in the metal cladding. This prevented the normal RSP and another procedure had to be developed literally in the field to get to the components.
A response team from my beloved 2701 EODs were the AF's primary response team, but there were also DOE teams which, frankly, were less than optimal.
You see, DOE is very experienced with disassembling nice clean nukes whereas the military EOD teams had experience disassembling things when they are "not so clean". :up:
This incident happened when I was in EOD school, but I did not get the full story until I got to the 2701st.
As nuclear weapon accidents go, this one went pretty well.
RIP Senior Airman David Livingston -- He done did his duty. :salute:
papa_smurf
10-27-11, 04:29 AM
I'd bet the last thing you'd want to hear is someone saying "Oops!"... :D
No, its; "I found this, where does it go?"
Herr-Berbunch
10-27-11, 06:32 AM
No, it's more like, "Hey, look at my dosimeter. Never seen it do that before!"
TLAM Strike
10-27-11, 06:56 AM
No, no, no, it's: What do you mean cut the red wire? They are all gray!
Sailor Steve
10-27-11, 11:12 AM
re: "The last thing you want to hear..."
The old TV series Sledge Hammer ended with the clueless hero trying to defuse an atomic bomb in the middle of Los Angeles. His last words were the same as he said almost every episode: "Trust me, I know what I'm doing."
How about:
"Hey, did you always glow in the dark?"...
Herr-Berbunch
10-27-11, 01:09 PM
re: "The last thing you want to hear..."
The old TV series Sledge Hammer ended with the clueless hero trying to defuse an atomic bomb in the middle of Los Angeles. His last words were the same as he said almost every episode: "Trust me, I know what I'm doing."
I used to love that show, if it's the comedy I'm thinking of. That and the film of Max Headroom. Out on dvd anyone?
No, it's more like, "Hey, look at my dosimeter. Never seen it do that before!"
lol
Sure I've posted this link before
http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/index.html
Some interesting information if you've a mind for the possibilities for nuclear annihilation.
geetrue
10-27-11, 08:17 PM
My fathers father came from Ireland ...
Why can't we just go back to throwing rocks at each other?
Osmium Steele
10-28-11, 07:51 AM
How'd that work out for the Irish?
Herr-Berbunch
10-28-11, 07:58 AM
How'd that work out for the Irish?
They moved on pretty rapidly to C4, but stopped lobbing it at each other! :stare:
Reminds me of when they were doing dummy bomb drops over Orford Ness with the Victors, they lined up for a bomb run but the doors jammed shut and so the bomb didn't drop. So they aborted to the nearest airfield which was RAF Woodbridge, landed and parked up, then managed to pry the door open...and the dummy bomb promptly fell out onto the concrete. :doh: Turns out it had been resting on the doors all the way back, and since it had been dropped if it was real then it would have armed itself, and then probably exploded as the aircraft descended for landing.
Needless to say, adjustments were made to protocols. ;)
Sailor Steve
10-28-11, 11:20 AM
I used to love that show, if it's the comedy I'm thinking of. That and the film of Max Headroom. Out on dvd anyone?
It is. And it is.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_13?url=search-alias%3Dmovies-tv&field-keywords=sledge+hammer&sprefix=sledge+hammer
Or rather, they are.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_13?url=search-alias%3Dmovies-tv&field-keywords=sledge+hammer&sprefix=sledge+hammer#/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_12?url=search-alias%3Dmovies-tv&field-keywords=max+headroom+the+complete+series&sprefix=max+headroom&rh=n%3A2625373011%2Ck%3Amax+headroom+the+complete+ series
Unless by "film" you mean the original British version, which sadly is not.
You might also enjoy the best and funniest superhero comedy ever.
http://www.amazon.com/Tick-Entire-Patrick-Warburton/dp/B0000AUHQE/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1319818751&sr=1-1
soopaman2
10-28-11, 11:29 AM
Do we really need as many nukes as we have? We only built up to counter a post war Russia that we convinced the world wanted to conquer Europe.
Technology changes. What used to do from land with nukes, we can do from submarines and Ticonderoga missile cruisers.
MAD
Mutually Assured Destruction. We all know that acronym. I am not educating anyone here with that.:)
That was why we built as many as we did. Mankind has moved beyond B-52 delivered bombs. We have much more effective ways to deliver nukes at short range. Like "Boomer" subs and missile bearing ships, like my favorite the Ticonderoga class.
Platapus
10-28-11, 06:12 PM
That is the important question. How many nukes do you really need, when the objective is to never use them?
Even if we go to a nuclear war, at what point is the decision made that if we launch more nukes we just doom the entire planet to slow extinction with the exception of the cockroach?
Having nukes is like keeping a hand grenade in your bedroom to protect yourself against someone breaking into your house.
The answer is that you need enough nukes to ensure that after the first strike goes against you, you still have enough nuclear capability (one of many nice euphemisms) to convince your adversary that they really shouldn't have done that first strike in the first place.
The problem is that our adversaries are pretty rude and not forthcoming with that number. Also what may deter one adversary on one instance may not be enough with another adversary in a different instance (or even the same adversary in a different instance).
So how many nukes do we need? - all of them appears to be the answer. The good news is that maintaining nukes is relatively inexpensive. It is maintaining the delivery systems for the nukes that costs mega bucks.
TLAM Strike
10-28-11, 08:44 PM
So how many nukes do we need? - all of them appears to be the answer. The good news is that maintaining nukes is relatively inexpensive. It is maintaining the delivery systems for the nukes that costs mega bucks.
I did the math once and found that we could have two and half Polaris nuclear missiles complete with warheads for the price of 1 F-22 Raptor (inflation adjusted to be equal).
The price savings for nuclear weapons is huge. Honestly I could see the world's militaries arming a lot of platforms with sub-kiloton nuclear warheads; specifically fighters.
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