Quote:
Originally Posted by TLAM Strike
But they could build a bomb with just the U-235 like Fat Man (The Hiroshima Bomb) and Thin Man type devices.
This reactor doesn't matter either way.
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you are absolutely correct. If they want to build a 235U device, they won't need a reactor at all, but their Uranium Enrichment facilities.
Only if they want to build a 239PU device will they need irradiated fuel rods, but then they also need a PUREX type facility.
A "thin man" device won't work. The Thin Man was a Plutonium gun type device. There are many obstacles to making a gun-type PU device (the speed of the gun needs to be about 10X faster than for a U gun-type device, for example), but in any case, for all practical purposes, if a nation is going to use PU for their devices, they will need to go with the much much more complicated and complex implosion design.