Like I said, a reason to continue work on new weapons. There is no reason such a warhead must be unpowered, BTW. There are people I could ask, but they can't tell me (I live 90 minutes from Los Alamos, and 15 minutes from the Air Force Weapons lab, and know a people that work at both places—but they can't tell me anything, lol).

You mean something like the Durandel runway buster, I assume. Well, who knows. A socalled "mini-nuke" the B61-11 is not, since that term is used for nukes below 5 kT only. Whether you can get - by conventional explosion or a rocket motor - a nuclear bomb deep enough into the ground so that the fallout after the explosion makes a difference, I somehow do doubt. I would expect that the difference lies not so much in the fallout, but the way in which the shockwave is travelling inside the ground. Sounds travells faster and over longer range in dense matter than in thin matter, I could imagine that a shockwave from a location inside earth also carries more destructive subterranean energy than a shockwave that originates from a point in the air and then hits the ground.

But I readily admit that I am a novice on these things. It's speculation that I try, almost on the basis of simple school physics :lol:

Yeah, I can ask over beers, but I invariably get the stock "I could tell you, but I'd have to kill you afterwards" gag :)

The trick with all penetrators is having the delicate buts survive the impact long enough and still function.

Like I said, the scenarios where nuke use—particularly limited use—is practical are few and far between. What you need is for the enemy to think that such an attack is plausible—regardless of whether it is in fact possible.

Did anyone notice that just prior to the signing of this new treaty with Russia, PL 111-140 was signed in to law. The title of this law is the Nuclear Forensics and Attribution Act

An interesting read. Glad we are developing that capability.

Hold on, wouldn't that mean ther would be tracability cioncerning nuclear materials , so people would understand where stuff had come from, so it would show if somewherer like China Russia S.Africa or France was shipping materials to places they shouldn't.
Not surprising Bibi doesn't want quesrions at the top level then.
Its hard to play the have we havn't we game when people want to know how much and from whom.

It's not like Israel would bomb someone and try to look casual like they had nothing to do with it.

That directive SOUNDS swell, but it's meaningless. The major powers might well allow it, so what? The bomb that explodes without us watching it in flight from launch will come from some piss-any place like NK or Iran. Neither of those players will ever allow their nuclear material to be characterized.

Good point, but didn't they do them bombings of American interests in the middle east and pretend it was the arabs doing it.

Which directive?

Really? on what do you base that?
Neither country can stand much without business partners, in fact one of them can't stand at all without huge subsidies from other countries

The nuclear forensics act, sorry, I said directive instead of act, my bad.

Research: "Nuclear Shaped Charge"
Here is something to get you started
^Warning its a .PDF file

Chile and Ukraine agree to turn over stocks of weapons grade uranium. I however still refuse...

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1978713-2,00.html

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0410/35682.html