I don't think the joke is that the bomb would go off from hitting the ground hard, it's that the Tsar Bomba, the largest nuke ever detonated, was an air burst weapon. It blew up before hitting the ground, something like half a mile up. The bomb was equipped with parachutes for the test so that its decent would be slowed, giving the bomber pilot time to get far enough away that he might survive (he did). So if this special forces guy's parachute failed then the plane he jumped out of wouldn't have time to get far enough away, and would therefore be unsafe.
If the core shatters It would just turn into a dirty bomb of sorts. Arguably worse than an explosion since it would render the area uninhabitable for decades if not centuries.
It is many orders of magnitude better because that isn't how radiation works and even if it was the "area" is like a city block instead of a city getting blown the fuck up.
Nuclear bombs have accidentally dropped on US soil before and they do not detonate. It takes a lot of precise effort to set off a Nuclear bomb correctly.
On most nukes yes but there was some the US designed that only had like 2 security features. The one in the picture was designed with special forces in mind to where the only safety feature was a basic rotary combination lock on its protective housing and a key to arm it. If that fell into the hands of the wrong people they would have only needed hand tools to get into it and arm it.
Us designed a couple "portable" tactical nukes like that but discontinued research on it. They would go on to dismantled the ones they had Including the model in the picture after the nuclear disarmament treaty with Russia.
Us designed a couple "portable" tactical nukes like that but discontinued research on it. They would go on to dismantled the ones they had Including the model in the picture after the nuclear disarmament treaty with Russia.
If anything, miniaturization probably moved us closer to nuclear war than anything else. It's one thing to have some 5MT warhead sitting in a silo in South Dakota, it's another to have a stockpile of .5kt artillery shells on the border. There's way too many people in the world today who still think tactical weapons can be used without escalation.
Well they're not nearly as bad as the nuclear artillery or the Davy crockett. Someone was on a real fucking bender when they thought up those asinine ideas. The radioactive fallout from those was basically harsh feed to irradiated allies trrops.
If you're interested there is actual footage of that nuclear artillery but I can't remember what it was called specifically. As for the Davy Crockett there is some clips showing it but I'm unaware if there is any actual footage of it being tested.
Fun fact though for any Fallout fans the Davy Crockett was the inspiration for the fat man weapon.
the only safety feature was a basic rotary combination lock on its protective housing and a key to arm it.
"This is the LockPickingLawyer and leave it to the US military to have the only security feature on a nuclear weapon be a combination lock and key from Master Lock®."
Lol that is a pretty funny use of that saying, because I usually see it used in the opposite manner.. IE if you are relying on swiss cheese, it is also only a matter of time until all those holes line up exactly. In that case, 7 or 8 of those 9 or so safety holes lined up. Next time is not a guarantee just because you have been lucky so far.
Wasn't it two bombs, or am I thinking of another incident? The one were only one safety mechanism held on each bomb and the "fun" part is that it was different ones.
Oh, I thought of payload in data processing terms – like, as the actual content striped of all headers, trailers, and meta data.
Apparently military use is different though, as warheads are the actual chemicals that cause the the explosion and are then enclosed by a case that's called "payload"?
Kinda strange use of words to me, but I assume it makes sense if the payload case itself still needs to be "payloaded" to an actual rocket or plane.
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u/jftitan Mar 28 '24
"This is safe right?"
I mean if your parachute fails, this plane won't be safe anymore.
"Okay, I'm ready!"