3 ms·

If the conventional explosives around a warhead go off in an uncontrolled manner then they are almost certainly not going to kick off a nuclear chain reaction.

If the conventional explosives around a warhead go off in an uncontrolled manner then they are almost certainly not going to kick off a nuclear chain reaction. Things have to happen at a very specific time. But what you're going to get is a massive plume of weapons grade plutonium flying in all directions. Depending on where this happens and the wind this could be the end of a few million people.

dboreham 7y ago
If you read the literature it turns out that's in some cases wishful thinking. You'd never get full yield, but no chain reaction turns out to not be guaranteed in the older designs.
- moltensodium 7y ago
  Can you point me towards what you read on this outside of the article? Not doubting you it's just been like 500 years since I studied nuclear chem and I'm not sure what literature you're talking about.
  - agurk 7y ago
    A good introduction is Eric Schlosser's Command and Control. For the points here the concept of one-point safe is the idea of if a nuclear device is likely to detonate in an uncontrolled situation. A good definition I found was[0]: > What is one-point safe? > Apart from preventing unauthorized use, it is equally important to ensure that the weapons do not explode accidentally. For example, if it is accidentally dropped during transportation (such incidents have occurred), it should not explode. A nuclear weapon is one-point safe if, when the High Explosive inside the weapon is initiated and detonated at any single point, the probability of producing a nuclear yield exceeding 4 pounds TNT equivalent is less than 1 in one million. A surprising number of early nuclear devices were not one-point safe. [0] http://www.nucleardarkness.org/nuclear/nuclearandconventionalweapons/ http://www.nucleardarkness.org/nuclear/nuclearandconventiona...
nabla9 7y ago
That only applies to most modern warheads. Older warheads had much less safety features. W69 was designed in early 70s when they had much less safety features. W69 had a design error that made it nuclear detonation possible in the event of a fire.

dboreham 7y ago

If you read the literature it turns out that's in some cases wishful thinking. You'd never get full yield, but no chain reaction turns out to not be guaranteed in the older designs.

moltensodium 7y ago
Can you point me towards what you read on this outside of the article? Not doubting you it's just been like 500 years since I studied nuclear chem and I'm not sure what literature you're talking about.
- agurk 7y ago
  A good introduction is Eric Schlosser's Command and Control. For the points here the concept of one-point safe is the idea of if a nuclear device is likely to detonate in an uncontrolled situation. A good definition I found was[0]: > What is one-point safe? > Apart from preventing unauthorized use, it is equally important to ensure that the weapons do not explode accidentally. For example, if it is accidentally dropped during transportation (such incidents have occurred), it should not explode. A nuclear weapon is one-point safe if, when the High Explosive inside the weapon is initiated and detonated at any single point, the probability of producing a nuclear yield exceeding 4 pounds TNT equivalent is less than 1 in one million. A surprising number of early nuclear devices were not one-point safe. [0] http://www.nucleardarkness.org/nuclear/nuclearandconventionalweapons/ http://www.nucleardarkness.org/nuclear/nuclearandconventiona...

nabla9 7y ago

That only applies to most modern warheads. Older warheads had much less safety features. W69 was designed in early 70s when they had much less safety features. W69 had a design error that made it nuclear detonation possible in the event of a fire.