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Originally Posted by mwruckman
Nuclear tests have a distinctive seismic patern and there are features that can allow one to determine where the test happened (location and local geology) and whether certain steps were taken to decouple the test so yield can be masked.
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You were doing fantastic right up that point.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mwruckman
If this is indeed a test the yield suggests an appreciable yield not the little kiloton level yield of earlier tests.
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Uh, for Plutonium you're limited to spherical implosion...initially.
The only way to know to if your spherical implosion design works is to test-detonate.
The first test would always be 4.5-4.9 kilograms of PuWG -- which the North Koreans have thanks to Blow Job Bill who wasn't satisfied giving them just one nuclear power plant...he gave them two.
4.5 kg will yield 1 kiloton. If they really had their act together -- I mean a really tight design, with good high quality laminated PBX cells and a state of the art controllers, and they knew how to use beryllium, they might get close to 2 kilotons.
If I remember, the reactor operating times at max burn-rate would give ~50 kg to 60 kg of PuWG....assuming they did it right, and assuming it isn't contaminated with Pu-241 and Pu-242, or assuming they were able to separate that and knock the Pu-241 down to below 0.1%.
If I would be North Korea, I would build back-packs.....ever see a coffee can or paint can? That's what a back-pack looks like....9" in diameter and a shade over 13" in height (cylinder height) and weighing a little over 50 pounds.
You need 4.5 kg of PuWG and that would give you 8 back-packs using 36 kg of PuWG.
The other 14 to 24 kg of PuWG I would use for something in the 10 kt to 20 kt range. Maybe even smaller, since my only concern would be wiping out a US carrier battle group.
You can get 2 to 3 warheads 20 kt out of that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mwruckman
Also the North Koreans have been working on a U235 bomb which are smaller and more suitable for putting on a rocket.
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First nuke detonated in 1945 ---- it's been what, 67 years, and no country on Earth has ever put a uranium-based warhead on a missile.
The US had an 8"/203 mm artillery round using uranium. Had a yield of 0.1 kilotons.
Max yield for uranium is 60 kilotons...but no has ever built one. The French used to have a uranium-based 40 kiloton warhead back in the 1950s to mid-1960s. Only a plane could deliver it. Couldn't use a missile. I think the Entendard carried it, and another aircraft, but I can't remember.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mwruckman
Now who would North Korea team up with.
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Not Iran. Iran doesn't have plutonium.
Atomically...
Mircea
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