Max Inux wrote:
These things are TOUGH MOTHER FUCKER that go big boom.
-Max
http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/bomber/n19980326_980417.html
[...]
A team excavated the two unexploded dummy bombs and took careful measurements of their angles and depth of penetration into the soil, which were 6 and 10 feet,
If those figures are true (If I had a new weapon I wouldn't publish exact details of its capabilities) then it achieves rather less penetration than Barnes Wallis's tallboy bombs of 1944 (one of which sank the Tirpitz). If they use these things they'll surely use them as simple deep penetration bombs? The "nuclear" part of it, if any, will be the depleted uranium inner casing, presumably a way of making it smaller. Penetration of any bunker the Taliban are likely to have with such a bomb will destroy it anyway, and putting a exploding nuke in will just kill the sheep on the surrounding hillsides. We're not talking about Cheyenne Mountain here. The old WW2 deep penetration bombs were huge things with fins, like a cartoon bomb in a comic (http://www.computing.dundee.ac.uk/staff/irmurray/pictures/617bombs.jpg) The larger 1945 version of the Tallboy, called the Grand Slam, supposedly penetrated over 7 metres of concrete when used in action - but it did weigh ten tons & hit the ground at twice the speed of sound. Apparently the shock of the impact did as much damage as the explosion, causing structures to break up up to hundreds of metres away, literally an "earthquake bomb". Of course it is always possible that Dr. Strangelove is still in the employ of the US military and that some insane looney with a grudge against sheep does want to use nukes. Sensible arguments about the idiocy of developing new exploding nukes can be found all over the web - the first google hit on B61-11 is http://www.brook.edu/FP/PROJECTS/NUCWCOST/lasg.htm and worth reading. FAS, as always, has heaps of stuff. Ken Brown