The truth about Israel's secret nuclear arsenal

Discussion in 'Nuclear, Chemical & Bio Weapons' started by H.R.A., Feb 2, 2014.

  1. skeptic-f

    skeptic-f New Member

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    The Oak Ridge stuff was just their first twenty bombs or so, AA. Israel is estimated to have 60 to 200 nuclear warheads now. And if we now EVERYTHING about Israel's nuclear weapons program, why do we go along with the charade the Israelis try to foist on the world that they DON'T have nuclear weapons? I'd love to see a poll in the USA among the general public about their knowledge of Israel's nuclear stockpile - I bet a lot of people don't know about this and those that do would tend to underestimate its size.
     
  2. xAWACr

    xAWACr Member

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    Pay attention, the Israelis don't deny they have nuclear weapons, they neither confirm nor deny it. As for why we go along with it, why shouldn't we?
     
  3. AboveAlpha

    AboveAlpha Well-Known Member

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    You don't really believe Canada ever actually became a Nuclear Weapons Free Zone....do you?

    AboveAlpha
     
  4. AboveAlpha

    AboveAlpha Well-Known Member

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    Well....just like anything secret....if it cannot be physically proven to exist...it is denied to exist.

    Look at the Groom Lake Facility.....our Government FINALLY admitted it exists....why? Because anyone with a computer could google Area 51 and see the damn base.

    AboveAlpha
     
  5. skeptic-f

    skeptic-f New Member

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    Because it changes the paradigm of the situation in the Middle East. The Arabs and/or Iranians CAN'T wipe out Israel without being wiped out in response, assuming a nuclear arsenal of 100 warheads and a reasonable medium range delivery system. Why do we care about Iran having a few nukes when our good ally Israel has a much better reason to be concerned and a much better ability to immediately intimidate them. Everyone knows the USA is soft but Israel has launched non-nuclear pre-emptive strikes in the past, including the entire Six Days War in 1967.
     
  6. Taxcutter

    Taxcutter New Member

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    Has Israel ever tested a nuke?

    Nukes are notoriously unreliable.

    If they don't test them, how do you know they work?
     
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  7. Gatewood

    Gatewood Well-Known Member

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    As a former nuclear missile technician (back in the stone age) I was told that it's not the nuke going -- bada-boom! -- that's the anxiety maker, because the science and the engineering on that end of things has pretty much been worked out. No, the big hair-raiser is the delivery system. In other words is your delivery system a reliable means of launching and then aiming and then releasing your payload? That's what has to be tested from time to time.
     
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  8. Taxcutter

    Taxcutter New Member

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    All the big league nuclear power spent rafts of money on testing of their nukes. That many tests tell me there must have been lots of duds. India, NorK and Pakistan had very public fizzles with designs little changed since 1945.

    I do agree that missle reliability and accuracy are and always have been huge problems.

    But reliability is why the US used the "Little Boy" bomb - the dirtiest and least efficient nuke every built - on Hiroshima without testing. They were confident the primitive weapon would detonate.

    Do you know what "Fogbank" is? The DoD is clueless as to what it is and why it is in every single thermonuclear device. They have a big stash of it in Oak Ridge. Apparently the stuff was so secret nobody ever wrote down what is was, why it was used and how to make it. The only guy who knew retired and expired - - tight-lipped to the last.
     
  9. xAWACr

    xAWACr Member

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    None of which explains why the Israelis shouldn't remain ambiguous about whether they have nuclear weapons, or why we shouldn't go along with it.
     
  10. Strasser

    Strasser Banned

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    Another reason for testing is the fast pace of new tech development, which also needs to be tested in the system that is going to be using it, fiddling around with fine tuning higher yields is ongoing as well.
     
  11. Strasser

    Strasser Banned

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    Good. Great news.

    Because they're psychotic lunatics who would launch them all over the place if it weren't for the fact that the U.S. would wipe them off the map if they did. Maybe even Putin or India would as well.

    Every military these days will launch pre-emptive strikes against armies massing on their borders. This isn't a point of concern for anybody but Israeli haters.
     
  12. xAWACr

    xAWACr Member

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    Most of the tests in the 40s were of implosion bombs, which are indeed harder to build that gun bombs. Also, both we and the Russians were trying to determine what was the minimum amount of HEU needed to build a bomb. Little Boy actually contained about twice as much fissile material as was needed, though nobody know that at the time. After the first fusion bomb was tested in 1951, testing quickly switched to these, as they are an order of magnitude more difficult to build that fission bombs.

    'In 2008, following the expenditure of a further $69 million, the NNSA finally managed to manufacture FOGBANK, and 7 months later, the first refurbished warhead was handed over to the US Navy, nearly a decade after the commencement of the refurbishment program.'

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOGBANK
     
  13. xAWACr

    xAWACr Member

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    But reliability is why the US used the "Little Boy" bomb - the dirtiest and least efficient nuke every built - on Hiroshima without testing. They were confident the primitive weapon would detonate.
     
  14. Taxcutter

    Taxcutter New Member

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    Taxcutter says:
    It still isn't to be trusted without testing.
     
  15. Taxcutter

    Taxcutter New Member

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  16. Strasser

    Strasser Banned

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    Did I say something that contradicts that?
     
  17. skeptic-f

    skeptic-f New Member

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    Dumbest post I've seen in a while. Little Boy was a prototype bomb of all nuclear weapons, for @#$%^ sake. It's like complaining about why the first inventor of a firearm didn't make an M-16 instead of an arquebus. Once you have a better grasp of the theory as translated into engineering, making a nuclear bomb is a near-trivial exercise IF YOU HAVE THE FISSIONABLE MATERIALS AND TRITIUM. Fusion bombs are a bit more difficult, and there is a higher chance the design is flawed ASSUMING MOSSAD DIDN'T STEAL A U.S. DESIGN, which is a very likely scenario.
     
  18. AboveAlpha

    AboveAlpha Well-Known Member

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    Look....we no longer need to PHYSICALLY DETONATE Nuclear Weapons anymore as we use Networked IBM Supercomputers to run detonation events.

    It is like this....before people knew that you needed a very specific ratio of the powdered Chemicals necessary to make Gunpowder.

    Before people knew that in order to make Gunpowder be explosive to it's full capacity or even explosive at all a person needed to add 75% saltpeter (5 parts) 15% charcoal (1 part) 10% sulfur (2/3 of 1 part) and that these materials need to be ground at a certain level and even water might be added in the process for reasons I will not post here.....people never would know for CERTAIN....unless they attempted to detonate it whether or not any specific batch of Gunpowder would work.

    Now....in the same way we know how to make batches of gunpowder that will work ever single time even without testing....we have previously developed and tested KNOWN TRIGGERS AND DETONATION CALCULATIONS which as long as X=A....A will ALWAYS = Detonation.

    Obviously it is drastically more complex than this but with the help of a supercomputer as well as long Nuclear Weapons are regularly maintenance as well as have Radioactive Isotopes replaced as due to Neutron Decay certain aspects of obtaining maximum yield in a Fusion Reaction must count on a certain amount of such an Isotopes to not obtain to great a level of Neutron Decay.

    Thus...countries such as the U.S., U.K., Russia, China, France....have the Supercomputing capability to not have to run Test Detonations of Nuclear Weapons.

    AboveAlpha
     
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  19. xAWACr

    xAWACr Member

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    Actually, I was quoting someone else there, but didn't properly identify it as such. Once you have a better grasp of the theory as translated into engineering, you'll realize that making a Uranium 'gun' bomb is fairly simple, manufacturing a Plutonium implosion bomb is not. It requires a high degree of technology to produce the explosive lenses to the very exacting tolerances needed, and even more to develop the means to detonate the lenses with the very, very precise timing needed to get the resulting shockwaves to properly implode the pit.
     
  20. AboveAlpha

    AboveAlpha Well-Known Member

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    A Plutonium Gun Bomb is also possible but do to it's length....impractical.

    AboveAlpha
     
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  21. xAWACr

    xAWACr Member

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  22. AboveAlpha

    AboveAlpha Well-Known Member

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  23. Toggle Almendro

    Toggle Almendro Well-Known Member

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    You only need testing in order to develop designs of a given complexity. A simple design requires no testing.

    And you are wrong. Israel and France had a joint nuclear weapons program when France's first atomic weapons were designed, developed, and tested.

    Further, Israel did a nuclear test in the Indian Ocean in 1979.
     
  24. cerberus

    cerberus Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    "AboveAlpha, Feb 13, 2014 Report"

    Blimey, from Feb 2014 to Nov 2018. WTF! :eyepopping: Just as well the original wasn't on the Current Events forum? :mrgreen:
     
    Last edited: Nov 1, 2018
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  25. DennisTate

    DennisTate Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    That is certainly good to know!
     

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