NK test (1/2 kt) was a flop: 1/30 of Hiroshima bomb

[leveymg]

This proves only one thing - NK doesn't yet have a really workable nuclear warhead. Certainly, nothing that could be effectively carried by a missile to U.S. territory.

Call it a weapon of less-than-massive destruction.

Either the device they lit off in a mine shaft yesterday was pathetically inefficient -- achieving a very low yield, only about 1/30 of the 15 kiloton Hiroshima blast (CBS News) -- or, it may not even have been a nuclear explosion, at all. A short freight train filled with TNT would achieve the same results. A few years ago, a NK rail depot was wrecked when a train hauling conventional artillery shells exploded.

We won't know what the source of the blast was until a western laboratory "sniffs" some vented radioactive materials from an airborne sample.

One way or the other, that wasn't a very impressive entry into the nuclear club.

This isn't the Cuban Missile Crisis -- the Russians had thousands of H-bombs, some as large as 50 megatonnes - don't let them stampede you into believing that this is an existential crisis, unless the Bush Administration turns it into one.

It's more of a display of bad judgment, a gift from one twisted dynastic son to another.

[wakeme2008]

1. look like a very successful test to me

All they had to prove was their design worked and it did.

[leveymg]

4. A low-yield device of this sort could be built by almost any university

if they had the plutonium. That was a fizzle -- an incomplete implosion of the nuclear core caused by a faulty design. Assuming the initial reports are accurate.

This shows that the state of NK's nuclear program is actually pretty primative.

I wouldn't sleep very well if I were the head of their nuclear design team.

[wakeme2008]

6. What makes you ASSUME they did NOT design it small in the first place

All they had to do was prove their design.. They can supersize it later...

[shadow 99]

7. That defies logic.

That defies logic.

A country would announce it's entering the nuclear club by firing off such a low kiloton warhead that many in the world would question whether it was just a load of TNT in a cave in the Mountains? You would set one off so large that there would be no possible way to challenge that it was not what you say it was... a nuclear bomb.

I suspect the scientists (and their families) that designed this dud are already on their way to a "re-education camp" to serve as examples for future so called scientists that screw up.

[wakeme2008]

8. Your logic defies logic....

NK has limited weapons grade material, and limited space in the country to do the test. It would make sense to do a small nuc as their first test.

[leveymg]

9. It's much harder to design and build a mininuke than the 1945 "Fat Boy"

Particularly using plutonium. It has to do with the way the nuclear material has to be compressed all at once inside of a sphere in order to produce a high-yield explosion. Otherwise, you get a nuclear sparkler, which is what this appears to have been.

It's altogether implausible that NK could build a suceessful mini-nuke. A medium-sized fission bomb is easiest, and that's the fastest, cheapest approach to becoming a nuclear power. After BushCo took power, that's exactly what NK decided they had to do. Because of the poverty of this Administration's diplomacy, this is the result.

A very dangerous impasse. Now what do we do?

[sofa king]

10. I don't think it was a fizzle.

I think that if NK has the material to make only two or three bombs at most, then a very small test warhead might be the only way that NK could make such a demonstration. I think the explosion was far more of a demonstration than a test, and I think a secondary goal of that demonstration is to try to keep the Republicans in power in the United States--who wouldn't want George W. Bush as an enemy, rather than a competent and honest one?

In a way, it's potentially scary. NK is thought to have three or four warheads, tops, but this little explosion suggests that NK is capable of making a far smaller warhead, one with potentially light weight. Is it small enough to fit on one of the rickety short-range ballistic missiles NK periodically sails over Japan? That would suggest that NK could have operational nuclear weapons and a semi-reliable delivery system far sooner than most guessed.

[bananas]

11. IIRC they told China it would be 4kt, so it was a fizzle.

They notified China of the test beforehand.

[leveymg]

17. Nobody ever delivered a 4kt warhead with a missile.

That would be more in line with the tactical artillery delivered by a big howitzer. We did that test in 1951-52, and then had troops march into Ground Zero.

Another advantage of using a big cannon is that it's more reliable and an artillery shell is harder to intercept with ABM.

[sofa king]

18. There was a tactical low-yield missile.

The Davy Crockett was supposed to fire the W54 warhead, an implosion-type bomb designed to have yields below 1kt. Interestingly, tests of the warhead actually produced over-yields, which reminds me of the old joke about the nuclear hand grenade which has a larger blast radius than the soldier can throw it.

The Davy Crockett was specifically designed to be used on the border between East and West Germany, and probably more specifically the strategic Fulda Gap. The North Koreans might also have a particular interest in low-yield nukes because of the importance of four or five fairly narrow valleys as invasion routes between North and South Korea. They don't need big weapons to render some or all of those routes temporarily useless. Note that cutting off those valleys is not necessarily a defensive move: cutting off some with nukes would allow for a concentration of force through the others (and through NK's ubiquitous tunnel system) while protecting against counter-attack.

That said, I agree with you on the artillery angle. An artillery shell is a much more reliable delivery system, if the warhead is designed to survive the huge g-forces of firing.

[Strelnikov_]

23. Or Fit In The Artillery Tubes Pointed South

Their whole strategy has been holding metro-Seoul hostage. Why would they change now.

And to the lurking freepers who think 'who cares, it won't effect me', you may want to consider the critical components for our technological industrial society that come out of this region.

You may want to consider the lessons from 'Collapse'. All it would take is the destruction of manufacturing facilities of a few critical components to push our interdependent economy into depression.

[bananas]

12. They apparenlty told China it would be 4kt

"A U.S. government official said the North Koreans, in a call to the Chinese shortly before the test was conducted, said it would be four kilotons."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/09/AR2006100901246.html

[leveymg]

13. It's much harder to build a working mini-nuke

Manufacturing miniaturized nuclear components isn't easy. For a first test, it's unlikely that they would intentionally choose a design that yields only 4 kt, or .5kt.

Sounds like the Post's source got creative, after the fact. I could be wrong. But, this low-yield approach doesn't make much sense, even if one is trying to be thrifty with one's stock of fissible material.

It's much harder to design and build a mininuke than the 1945 "Fat Boy", particularly using plutonium. It has to do with the way the nuclear material has to be compressed all at once inside of a sphere in order to produce a high-yield explosion. Otherwise, you get a slow-burn nuclear sparkler, which is what this appears to have been.

It's altogether implausible that NK could build a suceessful mini-nuke. A medium-sized fission bomb is easiest, and that's the fastest, cheapest approach to becoming a nuclear power. After BushCo took power, that's exactly what NK decided they had to do. Because of the poverty of this Administration's diplomacy, this is the result.

A very dangerous impasse. Now what do we do?
Mark

by leveymg on Tue Oct 10, 2006 at 06:45:19 AM PDT

< Parent | Reply to This >

You're speculating (0 / 0)
I agree that it would be easier to build a Trinity-sized device than a smaller one. That doesn't mean, however, that the North didn't try to build a low-yield device and failed.

In fact, if they did try for a 4-KT detonation, the apparent fizzle yield is a little more understandable.

by Califlander on Tue Oct 10, 2006 at 06:53:18 AM PDT

response from leveymg:

My impression is that NK got its design from China.

It's also my impression that China realy doesn't want Pyongpang to be an actual nuclear power. A nuclear war started by the Dear Leaders would endanger everything Beijing has been been trying to create for itself - like becoming the World's leading economic power within this century.

So, if I were an intelligent agent of Chinese intelligence (or the Agency of any other country), I wouldn't want to see il-Jong with an arsenal of working nukes.

A .5 kt yield on a 4 kt design is still a flop. Perhaps, not unforeseeable.

Just speculation.

[bananas]

15. I agree with you

I was pointing out that it was supposed to be a lot larger than .5 kt.

[ProfessorGAC]

28. The Smaller The Device, The Harder It Is To Build

That's why the famous "suitcase" nukes were such a canard. Even the Soviets admitted in the mid-90's, that they had about 40 suitcase bombs but were not certain that any more than 5 of them would actually work.
The Professor

[ProfessorGAC]

29. Dupe

.

[BootinUp]

2. Its an issue for the Dems to differentiate on

and show how inept the Bushes are on FP and nuclear proliferation. I wouldn't downplay it one little bit.







"So, on the Axis-of-Evil, are you better off than you were 4 years ago."

[ThomWV]

3. They Only Act Like It Was A Dud Firecracker Because They Are Powerless

To do a damned thing about it.

[Hubert Flottz]

5. That's why one should only buy American Made Goods!

Instead of some damned Chinese Junk!

Look for the UNION label! I've tried to tell ya!

[trof]

14. Now wait. Yesterday it was 1/60th.

Did the yield double overnight?
:shrug:

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

16. According to the Russians, it was ~10 kilotons.

:shrug:

[Rocknrule]

19. The plane explosions on 9/11 were 1/20 of the Hiroshima bomb

so the NKians have a ways to go

[BootinUp]

20. I think it was more like 3 to 4 KT based on

a paper written in 1992 on using seismic data to monitor Nukes:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=2361154&mesg_id=2361154

[savemefromdumbya]

24. probably around 1.5

[BootinUp]

25. Yeah, I just refigured and got 1.6.

If you use an exponential equation and the following data points:

1/70 kt = 2.5 Mag
1 kt = 4 mag
10 kt = 4.8 mag

I get the following equation

Kt = 1E-05e^2.8556x

x=Magnitude

[Beelzebud]

21. How do we know it wasn't a mine shaft filled with conventional explosives?

You know there are such things as bluffs.

Given that this test was in the sub-kt range, it's not out of the question for this to be a bluff. It wouldn't be very hard to pack a few tons of conventional explosives in a mine shaft and blow them to create the seizmic event...

[BootinUp]

22. But Sub Kiloton would be less than 4.0 magnitude

on the seismic data. These sub kiloton estimates are very suspicious according to a paper I found, take a look.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=2361154&mesg_id=2361154

[savemefromdumbya]

26. I heard it was a fake just the Korean army doing an exercise

[ProfessorGAC]

27. And, I'd Like To Know The Weight

If you have enough U235, one could make a gun barrel device with RDX as the driver as long as you had some very skilled machinists. The problem is, those things are HEAVY! A B-29 had to be stripped to carry a single bomb to Japan. There aren't many missiles that would handle that kind of payload.

Also, yields that low are generally the result of poor compression and therefore limited detonation. That means that there is a high probability that it wouldn't go off at all.

So, if my speculation is correct, we not only have NK with a weak device, that might not even detonate as a weapon, but no way to deliver it to a target.
The Professor