"Clean Nukes" Topic

What is the cleanest nuke ? In terms of minimum radiation and post use clean-up.

A neutron bomb?

Yes, but that's going the wrong way. I'm interested in abig bang with low fallout. Not a small bang with big fallout.

you want the Acme pew-35 discombobulator!

Actually, neutron bombs pump out more neutrons.

Airbursts are supposedly cleaner than ground bursts.

Yep, most fallout is dust (or water and especially salts if detonated at sea), not material from the bomb, so airbursts are cleaner, and airbursts small / high enough that the fireball doesn't touch the ground are pretty safe in isolation. (If you have a lot of them you can wind up with global fallout issues, but an isolated airburst is a surprisingly minimal radiation hazard.)

Radiation from neutron bombs is very intense but also very short lived.

If it's clean you're looking for use US bombs, Two stage classic fusion (H-bomb) in an airburst use. Two things make a bomb "dirty'; one is the fission device, by itself alone in an A-bomb or as a primary stage for an H-bomb and, Two any sheathing or cladding around the device. This is usually U-238.

In early A-bombs such oralloy (as its known in the trade) was used as a tamper to aid in neutron reflection and improve the chances for a decent yield, not a "fizzile". This is the reason that there were so many casualties from radiation at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In H-bomb manufacture an oralloy sheath around the fission primary and fusion secondary can undergo a third stage of fission from the heat of fusion and double the yield of the fusion device. It also radically increases the amount of fallout generated. Salt it with Cobalt, Iodine, etc and you can get a really nasty fallout combo.

Sorry for the discourse probably more than you wanted to know.

As above, "neutron" (enhanced radiation) bombs produce little fallout, just intense radiation.

But if you want a green option for nuclear warfare, fusion airburst is the way to go. It will still be s bit messy of course, and not much use against hardened targets.

Hotdogs, other than that I could not say for I might hit the doghouse for another 4 days for making discourse about using nuclear devices on a wargaming table, "Beware the Wabbit!"

No such thing as a clean nuke in the real world. And I can't say much more than that.

The famous 50 megaton Tsar Bomba was detonated at 10,000(?) feet altitude and as a consequence had very little fallout.

Neutron bomb
It changed the policy makers attitude on War in Europe from trying for a stalemate to one of winning to war.

So discussing TNW use on the tabletop will get me dh'd will it ? Didn't know that …..

In games, the cleanest nuke I've read about was called a HELL round in the Renegade Legion/Centurion setting. It used an unexplained process to directly cause hydrogen to fuse via a gravitational pulse, no plutonium or uranium primary involved.

Very clean, basically no lasting radiation. But anything in the area took pretty massive damage.

Many small nukes are worse then 1 big.

So "low" yealed ICBM carpet bombing worse the one big tsar bomb.

How about non nukes?

Russians (claim to) have FOAB thermobaric weapon 4x more powerful than American MOAB. Meant to replace certain nukes in existing inventory.

Incinerates everything in blast range, no radiation.

Yes Guthroth, and the Wabbit is around seething with indignation over such uses on the tabletop be careful,vewy careful =;»

I was a CBR officer for my unit. The troops considered nukes an obstacle but not a hazard. They were more concerned with the Herve and blood agents that the Soviets would mix in with the smoke and artillery. The Biological hazard was lethal because it would be run across without warning. No telltale smoke that you could suit up or button up for.

This is a 'fun' site.

nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap

I was too Rudy … If all bets were off. And Nucs, Bugs and Gas was used it would have really been the End Times …

Yep the quality of the all volunteer army in the 1970s was not as good as they are now or even the conscript troops of the 1960s.
I heard more than one nco of the new army say that if mobilization happened for real, then they would be off to Mexico.
So you are right all bets were off.

I think they clean the nukes on Tuesday

There's no such thing a "clean nuke." Any nuclear fissionable reaction will leave fall out and lots of radiation. Some one might use a hydrogen bomb for a clean kill, you still have an area the size of Nebraska as radioactive "fused" glass.

Even areas affected by neutron bombs can't be occupied for several weeks. The whole idea of the cold war going hot is ridiculous. Once Nuclear/Chemical/Biological weapons were unleashed on the battlefield, there would have been rapid escalation to total war involving the NBC arsenals.

That is one of the reasons I think Team Yankee is unrealistic and won't play it. If the cold war had gone hot, human life on the planet earth would no longer exist.

Yep the quality of the all volunteer army in the 1970s was not as good as they are now or even the conscript troops of the 1960s.
I heard more than one nco of the new army say that if mobilization happened for real, then they would be off to Mexico.
So you are right all bets were off.

I served '79-'90 … By the mid-80s, I feel the US had really rebuilt itself after Vietnam. But just with all the "pitfalls" of WMDs certainly made one think. If this was to happen, WMDs in effect, it would certainly be the nightmare scenario like something out of the Sci-fi book or movie.

Remember training and the S3 had a chart with each unit listed. With how many rads they were subjected to before they had to be withdrawn … GulP ! Of course if you even survived the conflict you'd probably die of cancer or something a few year later …

Calculating a size of a yield by the height, etc. of the Mushroom cloud.

If you had no detection devices, you'd have to order the lowest ranking troop to take off his mask to see if it was clear.

Good times … brings new meaning to Dead Men Walking. Or The Walking Dead …

Was volunteered as a 1LT in the 101 to be an Atomic Demolitions Missions Officer. Short explanation you and your team would be inserted into an area. And emplace a basketball sized atomic device. They were man packed and came in 2 sizes … Small & Medium … I hope they still don't have this option. But it wouldn't surprise me. It is another way to introduce Atomic/Nucs to the battlefield.
Thought if this option was chosen … it would be a bad day. For all involved … The nightmare scenario just worse ! Mama !!!!

If the cold war had gone hot, human life on the planet earth would no longer exist.

We came to that conclusion as well …

I think they clean the nukes on Tuesday

I think we did ours on Monday … " I just washed my nuc and can't do a thing with it ! "

Legion 4 in desert storm I had to make one of my troops unmask after an M8 alarm went off and we knew it wasnt a drill. In training it takes just a few minutes to go through the procedure. Live, it took a hell of a lot longer. Made sure he could not grab his bayonet or rifle and brought over the 8 biggest gunbunnys we had, then told him. Unhappy doesnt even begin to describe his face. took about 20 minutes but he eventually took it off.

nothing happened, but we never did learn what set the alarm off. not something i ever want to do again. him either i would guess.

Owen

Yes … what a nightmare …that you to had to do that for real. You did your duty as you/we were all trained to do. I certainly understand why you or anyone would never want to do that ever/again.
As I say frequently. With WMDs it's a 0-Sum game. If you know for sure … it may be too late.

How about non nukes?

Russians (claim to) have FOAB thermobaric weapon 4x more powerful than American MOAB. Meant to replace certain nukes in existing inventory.

Incinerates everything in blast range, no radiation.

Yeah, thermobarics are probably the best weapon for killing all the troops and not totally smashing the area flat.

The US has thermobaric warheads on Hellfires, possibly on TOW and Javelin ATGMs.

The Russians have replaced the idea of assault guns with the TOS1 "artillery" rocket tank. Short range on the rockets, maybe 8km max, but huge warheads. Turning a couple of those loose on a city will rapidly remove the city from the map.

A lot of those alarms that went off were due to WMD material in the air.

A lot of our troops have gotten sick, and/or died over the years from that, and they've finally admitted that there were chemical agents in the air from all the burned out, or destroyed bunkers in Iraq.

Apparently, a lot of units were told to turn them off, or ignore them, which I find astounding.

A real tragedy for those that have become ill, or died prematurely due to that practice.

Gulf War Syndrome is real, and was caused by WMD exposure. Sadly, the government has only recently owned up to that, finally, after more than a decade of denial.