If you intercept & shoot an incoming nuclear cruise missile with an air to air missile, will it still cause a nuclear detonation?
If a nuke goes off in the woods, would anyone hear it?
No, creating a nuclear detonation requires a precisely timed implosion from multiple detonators, you'll probably set the HE and blast plutonium over the area but there won't be a nuclear explosion.
>>28254944
No, at best you crash the thing intact and get a free nuke. At worst you detonate one side of the HE sphere and scatter radioactive material across the landscape for a couple hundred yards.
>>28254965
this
getting nukes to go off isn't really easy
but spreading radioactive material is.
this is why any ABM should throw a shopping bag around the missile before hitting it with a hammer a few times and putting out the rocket engine with a fire extinguisher.
>>28254977
>free nuke
PALs are supposed to be as hard to disable as 'a tonsillectomy going in from the wrong end'. They'll actually asymmetrically detonate to prevent pit extraction without the right codes.
>>28254999
True for American and most NATO nukes. Probably true for Russian nukes. Nobody knows on Chinese nukes. North Korea is still at "take whatever nuclear material we can find and pack it in a simple sphere of Comp-B and hope it reaches fission" stage and have no protection whatsoever.
>>28255025
>most NATO nukes
I love that the British security system involves either a pool table grade lock or the threat of a stern talking to from the PM, no tea or biscuits.
>>28255054
lol. I don't know shit about Brit nukes, would be hilarious if true.
>>28255076
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7097101.stm
The RAF used a simple tubular lock, the Royal Navy just told their submarine commanders to be good:
"It would be invidious to suggest... that Senior Service officers may, in difficult circumstances, act in defiance of their clear orders".
>>28255054
The best security system is still a man with a gun.
>>28255099
hmm, I don't think this is a good idea with the growing Muslim population and anti-discrimination laws affecting even nuclear jobs
>>28254944
I don't think so, but contamination could be possible? I think it takes a little more than a knock to start the reaction.
>>28254944
Yes and no. Nuke requires specific detonation signal to work properly so hit will not detonate nuclear warhead by itself. But. Cruise missile could have self-destruct features detonating warhead in case of hit to create additional problems for defender.
>>28254982
So it becomes a dirty bomb?
>>28255147
Don't be stupid.
>>28255054
>no tea or biscuits.
Fucking savage
>>28255990
That would be more engineering trouble than it's worth. You have no guarantee that the sensors that are supposed to detect the missile's destruction and trigger the nuclear detonation aren't the first things actually destroyed.
>>28256089
Effectively, yes
>>28256187
>You have no guarantee that the sensors that are supposed to detect the missile's destruction and trigger the nuclear detonation aren't the first things actually destroyed.
Non-engineer detected. Redundant failsafes are not that hard to engineer. They're only not necessary because Nukes aren't "intended" to have a backup or failsafe detonation.
>>28256215
It would be a pretty bad idea to have a fail deadly system in a nuclear warhead.
>>28256242
Exactly. If a nuke is intercepted mid flight over a country other than the intended nuke, airbursting it is NOT a good idea
But technically speaking it wouldn't be hard to rig
>>28254999
From what I remember, modern PALs require an eight-digit code and will render the warhead inert if the wrong code is entered X amount of times.
>>28256215
Just because the physics package is not "fail-safe" (more accurately fail-deadly in this case), doesn't mean there aren't redundant systems to ensure a commanded detonation actually results in one.
You're talking about putting sensors and logic onto a cruise missile platform that would detonate the physics package in case of missile destruction. However, you need sensors to detect that you have been "blown-up" and not just crashed into the ground or Pvt Pyle touched two wrong wires together during maintenance. And even then, you have no guarantee that those sensors won't be the first thing destroyed, which necessitates having redundant sensors. However, this all costs complexity, and more importantly on a cruise missile, weight.
Increasing the weight decreases either your speed or your range, both of which are undesirable for a nuclear-strike cruise missile. And you don't gain anything other than a nuclear detonation in a place you weren't intending to blow up.
>>28254965
Why does it have HE?
>>28256273
I meant in the event of tampering to recover the pit rather than just entering incorrect codes.
>>28256278
Consider the weight of just a pit, then factor in the secondary and, in some cases the DU tertiary. A few extra circuits aren't going to be a huge problem, it's more the issue of being able to trigger detonation by meeting conditions other than correct code entry. The same systems that would trigger detonation in the event of a detected intercept could be used to fire a recovered warhead at the salvaging party's convenience. You could geofence the fail deadly but intercept is unlikely in that area.
>>28256316
Explosive lenses for implosion. When detonated simultaneously, they compress the pit enough for prompt criticality (i.e. a big boom) to occur. Improper compression results in pit dispersion or a fizzle.
>>28256187
>You have no guarantee that the sensors that are supposed to detect the missile's destruction and trigger the nuclear detonation aren't the first things actually destroyed.
You don't need this guarantee. If it works it works and interceptors and radars get nuclear blast into their face to deal with, if it doesn't, it doesn't, you don't lose something. If you lose something like several missiles fly close or by same path and can kill each other by nuclear blast you don't set this feature "on".
>>28256345
Or enemy intelligence services discover the triggering circumstances and induce them over a friendly nation or a strategically unimportant area.
>>28256336
>>28256316
Here's the classic X-Ray photography on the explosive lens used during the Manhattan Project
>>28256318
All of that shit adds needless complexity that doesn't add any significant benefit.
>>28256345
Or they camp outside your launchers and the missiles blow up in your face. You want the nuclear detonation exactly where you want it,and nowhere else. If you want to fuck up the interceptors and radars just use an extra missile and fuck those up too, it's not a hard concept to understand.
>>28256358
>the triggering circumstances
>warhead surface impact acceleration
>>28256388
>All of that shit adds needless complexity that doesn't add any significant benefit.
I'm not arguing for its utility but weight and complexity (it's a damn nuclear weapon) aren't massive stumbling blocks.
>>28256402
There's a reason ejector seats don't do this to save a pilot in the event of attack.
>>28256408
Nuclear weapons are not monolithic systems. The physics packages are usually self-contained sub-assemblies that can be moved between different delivery systems without requiring complete disassembly of both. It is impractical to add in "cruise-missile fail-deadly" sensors/wiring/code to a physics package that could be used on something other than cruise missiles.
It's needlessly complex, is what I'm trying to get at.
>>28256426
Yeah because automatics + pilot is better than just plain automatics. But if cruise missiles would have pilots i am pretty sure they would have option to detonate nuke manually in case of intercept. (after a certain point of flight of course hehe).
>>28256468
Fair enough. Out of interest, which warheads are shared between cruise missiles and other delivery systems?
>>28256468
>The physics packages are usually self-contained sub-assemblies that can be moved between different delivery systems without requiring complete disassembly of both.
What?
>>28256536
The W80 was designed to work on the AGM-86, the AGM-129, and the Tomahawk.
That's three different delivery systems, each with different launch, cruise, and terminal parameters.
>>28256602
You don't have to take apart the turbofan to get to the warhead. You can take the warhead out and put it into another missile, or you can put a different kind of warhead into the missile. I'm not implying that it's a 5-minute job, I'm just saying that the missile was not designed around the physics package, and vice-versa.
>>28256606
Ok, but thats the CSA. I thought you were just talking about the physics package itself.
>>28256606
Thanks, I thought the W80 was unique to tomahawk and only shared certain components with the warheads used in other similarly armed weapons.
>>28256692
Yeah, poor choice of terminology on my part. I'm talking about the entire weapon sub-assembly, and I don't know the word for that.
>>28256719
CSA is what you are looking for. Canned Subassembly.
>>28256727
Thanks
>>28255054
Did you know all British nuclear weapons are equipped with a tea maker on the inside? And the more modern ones also come with a portrait of the Queen and a biscuit oven.
>>28254944
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1966_Palomares_B-52_crash
>>28254965
No it doesn't
Nukes are just designed that way for safety reasons
Not even entirely sure an air to air missile would scatter nuclear material.
If the tracking device of the missile is infrared, it'll hit the back of the ICBM and airburst. ICBM's are bigger than jets, so the warhead would be intact, and the missile body would be blown up.
>>28257390
Nah, the newest ones have a specialized beryllium reflector that times the reaction to form a silhouette of the queen at the epicenter. That's where they spent most of their R&D money.
>>28256316
because thats how nukes work, u think that shit just goes critical on its own?
>>28254944
No, its terribly hard to get a nuclear detonation. This is why so much effort and research was put in to make it possible.
To achieve a nuclear explosion you need to compress enriched uranium so the atoms become unstable and fall apart, this triggers the chain reaction. If you shoot it you will, however, have fallout from the nuclear material and thus have a 'dirty bomb'
So shoot it down before it reaches your country.
>>28261319
>get nuked
>instead of a mushroom cloud a giant queen rises out of the ashes of my civilisation
It would be absolutely horrifying.
>>28256098
You're the kind of person who said "London will always be English" 20 years ago
>>28263330
:)
>>28263335
>London 60% white
>yfw Slavs are "white"
>>28261319
They all so added tiny speakers which separate before detonation and slowly decent with parachute and play Rule Britannia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XPHL4Q86t4
If you crash a Tachikoma AI satellite into an American Empire nuclear SLBM will it still cause a nuclear detonation?
