LazarusBoard

So first I started with tax evasion... but now I'm thinking about Embezzlement. Isn't just such a fun word to say?
E M B E Z Z L E M E N T

Northern Rosary Isles wrote:

So first I started with tax evasion... but now I'm thinking about Embezzlement. Isn't just such a fun word to say?
E M B E Z Z L E M E N T

that's a bad idea

Hyrule world wrote:

that's a bad idea

E M B E Z Z L E M E N T

good day all

Hyrule world wrote:

top o' the mornin'

:)

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Greater catarapania wrote:

At the yield scales we're discussing here, prompt radiation>blast>thermal effects. For large nuclear weapons (tens or hundreds of kilotons) it's the other way around, thermal effects dominate blast and radiation, and you get massive fires. Fourth gens would be more or less comparable to a multi-tonne conventional explosive crossed with a scaled-down neutron bomb - though my nation uses boron-10 to "blast enhance" the weapons (and decrease radiation output) where possible.

PLUTO was an open-cycle solid core. A closed cycle gas core NTR is an entirely different ballgame. There are two key differences for our purposes: lack of fallout in the exhaust, and higher specific impulse. With methane propellant for work outside of the atmosphere, and a mass ratio of two, the platform would be able to make a suborbital hop with the airbreathing engines, release k-rods, then have enough propellant onboard to literally reverse course (think ~18 km/s delta-vee). It never has to pass over enemy territory.

Yes, but in kinetic weaponry. The goal would be to force the rest of the world into an arms race that would make "strategic" nuclear weapons obsolete, meaning ordinary civilians no longer have to live with the Sword of Damocles over their heads.

This is true, but taking out silos reduces the total nuclear arsenal available to the enemy, which decreases the odds of my ballistic missile defense systems being saturated.

Fair. We're jackasses, and upfront about it, so we don't exactly have the right to complain about pedants.

Gen one was the first pure fission atomic bombs. Gen two was thermonuclear warheads. Gen three includes things like variable yield, nuclear shaped charges (still used by Catarapania fairly extensively), bomb-pumped x-ray lasers, and neutron bombs. All of these can be built using modern technology. Fourth generation weapons are PMT.

Gen four would be small (subkiloton) devices using subcritical masses of fissile material (if any) and/or other exotic techniques to kickstart fusion. These could be fairly easily modified to take advantage of the advances made by third generation weapons, and would be tactical, rather than strategic, in nature. They would be far more potent than chemical explosives, yet nevertheless be three orders of magnitude less powerful than the smallest efficient nuclear weapons we have today, allowing them to be used in relatively good conscience.

It's that last point that makes fourth gens attractive to Catarapania. We're a fairly militaristic nation, but we respect the principles of proportionality and distinction in all of our operations. Being able to harness the power of the atom without killing thousands of innocent civilians in the process is a huge boon, especially when we're outnumbered or need to eliminate an entrenched enemy.

We're curious what a fifth generation nuclear weapon would look like, given what's been said already.

I'll bear that in mind.

I am in a hurry and this is a mammoth text, I will try to be brief.

1) Yes, 4 th generation could have a lower yield and those decrease the threshold of unchaining a firestorm --> nuclear winter. But because of that it will rise the readiness and will to employ them those in the long term probably negating that advantage. Beside, the rivals and enemy eventually will catch up.

2) Yes, a closed-up cycle will spit less radiation but having a light enough airframe able to lift a fission nuclear reactor, would ultimately will be a source for ionizing radiation. Of course it could work as describe, assuming no AA and not accident. Otherwise you will have a worse accident that the Palomares incident for example, with a critical and active fissile material.

3) Nonsense. Precisely you are putting an active nuclear powered sword of Damocles over everyone.
As you exposed, it is not a weapon for peace but one geared toward a first-strike capability, therefore to accelerate the work toward a nuclear war.

For example suppose you develop the machine and it is flawless. Any opponent with nuclear weapon will see that as soon it will be operative, the logic will dictate a first-strike, because the nuclear arsenal of the others will be a one time use it or lose it. And always you can increase the number of attacking vectors more quickly than the defense. More to the point, it will encourage the second-strike capabilities or more unconventional delivery methods.

4) For 4th it is curious, how no information has been released from the 3th generation. Even perusing the Scientific American archive from the end of the seventies until the nineties, it is astounding the silence about that, even with the intense chattering about nuclear war and weapons during the Cold War.

5) The best way to "buried" someone with nuclear power it is to use to power your economy and crushed by buying it out, with the new "soft" form of war, like the asymmetrical warfare, lawfare and the like of fourth-generation warfare tools.

6) As for more futuristic big BOOM device there are several ideas in science fiction sites, verging on the ridiculous (and strangely satisfying for BANG! values)

Loftegen 3 wrote:

It seems I need to clarify something regarding Loftegen 3's nuclear arsenal. We apparently use 'generation' in a different way than other countries. By the common international and scientific definition, our weapons are only third generation. Amongst ourselves we split the 2nd and 3rd generation categories into two more narrowly defined categories each. What are commonly referred to as 4th generation weapons are known to us as 6th generation. Sorry for the confusion. :P

which generation is the best

Hyrule world wrote:

which generation is the best

Theoretically, the 4th. No one seems to be able to actually make them, though.

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Aigania wrote:

I am in a hurry and this is a mammoth text, I will try to be brief.

1) Yes, 4 th generation could have a lower yield and those decrease the threshold of unchaining a firestorm --> nuclear winter. But because of that it will rise the readiness and will to employ them those in the long term probably negating that advantage. Beside, the rivals and enemy eventually will catch up.

2) Yes, a closed-up cycle will spit less radiation but having a light enough airframe able to lift a fission nuclear reactor, would ultimately will be a source for ionizing radiation. Of course it could work as describe, assuming no AA and not accident. Otherwise you will have a worse accident that the Palomares incident for example, with a critical and active fissile material.

3) Nonsense. Precisely you are putting an active nuclear powered sword of Damocles over everyone.
As you exposed, it is not a weapon for peace but one geared toward a first-strike capability, therefore to accelerate the work toward a nuclear war.

For example suppose you develop the machine and it is flawless. Any opponent with nuclear weapon will see that as soon it will be operative, the logic will dictate a first-strike, because the nuclear arsenal of the others will be a one time use it or lose it. And always you can increase the number of attacking vectors more quickly than the defense. More to the point, it will encourage the second-strike capabilities or more unconventional delivery methods.

4) For 4th it is curious, how no information has been released from the 3th generation. Even perusing the Scientific American archive from the end of the seventies until the nineties, it is astounding the silence about that, even with the intense chattering about nuclear war and weapons during the Cold War.

5) The best way to "buried" someone with nuclear power it is to use to power your economy and crushed by buying it out, with the new "soft" form of war, like the asymmetrical warfare, lawfare and the like of fourth-generation warfare tools.

6) As for more futuristic big BOOM device there are several ideas in science fiction sites, verging on the ridiculous (and strangely satisfying for BANG! values)

1) While lower yield is a part of it, the main reason why the "world ending" risks of fourth gens are so low is because of the way yield fractions scale. With the first and second generation weapons that make up the bulk of the modern strategic arsenal, it's the thermal effects that rule. As you get smaller, more and more of the thermal component gets soaked up into the blast component, and both become less significant relative to the prompt radiation release. A fourth generation nuclear weapon would be bad at causing firestorms, it's just not releasing enough heat. The radius for firestarting would be less than the 5 psi blast radius. More to the point, these weapons can be used in such a way so as to minimize collateral damage, and the states making use of them would take advantage of that.

2) The engine may be radioactive, but this thing would be flying high and fast enough that people on the ground wouldn't have a noticeable exposure. Remember, this thing isn't the SLAM. It's in the air so it can make a suborbital hop, ditch its k-rods, and get back to Catarapanian airbases. The thing can fly over oceans to avoid ASAT/ABM fire before making the hop.

A crash has the potential to be catastrophic, but with proper precautions, the gas core could be vented at high altitude (instead of spewing radioactive death all over the landing site). There are plans for ejecting solid-core reactors from spaceships powered by them, and any of the methods used could in theory be used to eject any (solid - the gas in the reactor comes from somewhere) uranium fuel carried aboard the spaceplane. And if any of these methods were to fail, well, that's what reparations are for.

3) As for the game theory of introducing this kind of thing, we're already living it. American ABM systems have gotten good enough that Russia has developed a hypersonic boost-glide reentry vehicle for its nuclear weapons to ensure that a second strike would get through. Soon, we'll see America and China develop hypersonic interceptors to deal with these sorts of reentry vehicles. I'm assuming that these spaceplanes would be introduced after several additional rounds of a similar arms race.

Moreover, even if an enemy were to be inspired to use their strategic arsenal in a first strike against me, they would wind up causing nuclear winter themselves - and they would know it. Even a limited war between India and Pakistan has the potential to cause nuclear winter, so even a limited strategic strike on the part of a single actor is enough to cause mutual destruction of all parties. It would be far more profitable to invest in an arsenal you can actually use, preferably one based around weapons small enough that you can use them without committing war crimes, and also invest in a similar "anti-silo" system to my own.

Cute baby yoda wrote:

ask away
(lag so might be while)

do you watch jackcepticeye on youtube and are you irish

Cossack Peoples wrote:

*Doubt*

you only have yourself to doubt

Fluffiness wrote:

Beware the lazer-firing light-speed-runners star-swallowers pink fluffy unicorns !

I need some Holy Heat-Seeking Surface-To-Air Katyusha Missiles attached to an indestructible speedy Battle Tank to Counter that...

Cossack Peoples wrote:

I need some Holy Heat-Seeking Surface-To-Air Katyusha Missiles attached to an indestructible speedy Battle Tank to Counter that...

Fluffiness wrote:

Beware the lazer-firing light-speed-runners star-swallowers pink fluffy unicorns !

y'all are strange