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My knowledge of neutron bombs was mainly popular science saying it would "just" kill everyone in a radius without damaging anything else, but the way you descri

My knowledge of neutron bombs was mainly popular science saying it would "just" kill everyone in a radius without damaging anything else, but the way you describe it it's "just" a thermonuclear bomb without the third stage.

mandevil 1y ago
So, in the Cold War, when NATO would do conventional war games, they almost always lost. (1) At some point or another NATO ran out of troops and a Soviet tank army Operational Maneuver Group broke through and there were no NATO forces left to stop them. At that point it becomes a political question: will the NATO political leaders (most importantly West Germany) allow the use of nuclear weapons on their own territory, killing their own civilians? (2) Some people thought that 'neutron bombs' were destabilizing because they made it more likely that, under those circumstances, the West German government would say "yes, let's go nuclear" and then that would lead to an escalation chain and pretty quickly it's Dr. Strangelove. (That all depends on the idea that a conventional NATO-Warsaw Pact war was even possible, which I'm not sure is true.) But that's why some people made it such a big deal, they thought that a bomb that had almost no fall-out might lead to nuclear weapons use, it's the political not engineering consequences of deployment that worried them. The engineering is not the constraint, in fact it's actually barely easier to build one. 1: Looking at the capabilities that the Soviet Army was supposed to have, not necessarily the capabilities that they actually had, the Soviet Army should have crushed NATO conventionally from anytime ~1950 on. As the Russian invasion of Ukraine reminds us, armies are not always actually at the level they claim to be. 2: The French- who were sort of in and sort of out of the NATO command structure- answer to this question was the Pluton missile which was not capable of reaching East Germany, could only hit targets in West Germany (from bases in France- it was a mobile missile that could theoretically drive into West Germany, but... come on now). So they had the ability to engage targets in West Germany, and there was no question of their political leaders: they were 100% totally willing to nuke Germany rather than let Soviet troops conquer their country.
LorenPechtel 1y ago
Neutron bombs are small fusion bombs designed for putting as much energy into the neutrons as possible. Set the bomb off high enough and the blast would not be worse than a big storm but deliver an instant-kill neutron dose. Turns out to be a horrible idea, though--yes, that's what it does to it's target, but consider farther out. The quick kill dose is several times the kill dose--you likely have a bunch of enemy forces that are dead men walking. And when you put soldiers in hopeless positions they have a tendency to try to take the enemy with them. You just made a bunch of kamikazes.
buildbot 1y ago
According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_bomb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_bomb; yes it’s basically a fusion bomb with a different casing but also can be tuned to put a good deal of that energy into very high energy radiation vs. thermal radiation. What I don’t understand is how neutron activation can be avoided. In particle accelerators this happens to whatever is around the collision point, you end up with lots of radioactive sensors.

mandevil 1y ago

So, in the Cold War, when NATO would do conventional war games, they almost always lost. (1) At some point or another NATO ran out of troops and a Soviet tank army Operational Maneuver Group broke through and there were no NATO forces left to stop them. At that point it becomes a political question: will the NATO political leaders (most importantly West Germany) allow the use of nuclear weapons on their own territory, killing their own civilians? (2) Some people thought that 'neutron bombs' were destabilizing because they made it more likely that, under those circumstances, the West German government would say "yes, let's go nuclear" and then that would lead to an escalation chain and pretty quickly it's Dr. Strangelove. (That all depends on the idea that a conventional NATO-Warsaw Pact war was even possible, which I'm not sure is true.) But that's why some people made it such a big deal, they thought that a bomb that had almost no fall-out might lead to nuclear weapons use, it's the political not engineering consequences of deployment that worried them. The engineering is not the constraint, in fact it's actually barely easier to build one. 1: Looking at the capabilities that the Soviet Army was supposed to have, not necessarily the capabilities that they actually had, the Soviet Army should have crushed NATO conventionally from anytime ~1950 on. As the Russian invasion of Ukraine reminds us, armies are not always actually at the level they claim to be. 2: The French- who were sort of in and sort of out of the NATO command structure- answer to this question was the Pluton missile which was not capable of reaching East Germany, could only hit targets in West Germany (from bases in France- it was a mobile missile that could theoretically drive into West Germany, but... come on now). So they had the ability to engage targets in West Germany, and there was no question of their political leaders: they were 100% totally willing to nuke Germany rather than let Soviet troops conquer their country.

LorenPechtel 1y ago

Neutron bombs are small fusion bombs designed for putting as much energy into the neutrons as possible. Set the bomb off high enough and the blast would not be worse than a big storm but deliver an instant-kill neutron dose. Turns out to be a horrible idea, though--yes, that's what it does to it's target, but consider farther out. The quick kill dose is several times the kill dose--you likely have a bunch of enemy forces that are dead men walking. And when you put soldiers in hopeless positions they have a tendency to try to take the enemy with them. You just made a bunch of kamikazes.

buildbot 1y ago

According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_bomb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_bomb; yes it’s basically a fusion bomb with a different casing but also can be tuned to put a good deal of that energy into very high energy radiation vs. thermal radiation. What I don’t understand is how neutron activation can be avoided. In particle accelerators this happens to whatever is around the collision point, you end up with lots of radioactive sensors.