238
US to build new nuclear gravity bomb
(www.defensenews.com)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 29 Oct 2023
238 points (100.0% liked)
Technology
59166 readers
2440 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
I got real excited to learn the physics of a nuclear gravity bomb.
We have gotten to the point in modernity where so many bombs are technologically guided we must define bombs which fall, and are guided by, the force of gravity.
Yeah I also wondered if "nuclear gravity" was some fascinating new branch of physics.
Got real disappointed when I realised that it meant dropping 'em.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/B61_nuclear_bomb
Oh... thats why i couldnt find any cool youtube video describing it... cool name though
Yeah it's just a fancy way of saying "dumb bomb."
You don't need guided accuracy with a megaton nuke pooped out by a plane.
Had something more along these lines in mind?
Yeah man, that scratches the itch!
You might also find my UAP write-up interesting. Particularly, the section on USAF Project 1794. (Scroll to the images of the actual report.)
My article is very long, but it's comprehensive and thoroughly cited with valid sources.
Thank you, I've saved that for a quiet moment.
It should've been "nuclear powered, gravity operated bomb", but that doesn't have the same ring to it. /s
My question is:
This has to he dropped from a drone right? The explosion would kill the pilot if they were that close.
Wouldn't even technically be nuclear powered, it just has a nuclear payload. I feel like the use of "gravity" in this article was an unnecessary addition.
When most people think "bomb", they don't think immediately think of "guided missile", they thing something that is either planted or dropped from above, and in this case the latter describes exactly what kind of bomb this is.
Fair
These "bombs" likely fall dozens of miles through the air travelling at about a thousand feet per second. They absolutely have a guidance system to keep them on course, basically exactly the same as a missile except without the rocket.
The only real difference between a missile and a "gravity bomb" is they have to be closer to the target when they are "fired". Oh, and gravity bombs are cheaper. A lot cheaper.
Even if you never fire a missile they still have to be maintained. See Russia vs Ukraine war... It's estimated 60% of Russian missiles don't even explode at all. And the ones that do are often nowhere near the target due to a guidance system failures. If they were properly maintained they'd work better than that.
『geekout about the cold war』
Nope. We have planes that fly really high and are shielded enough to withstand the effects at distance. Our air-dropped nukes are the most potent used by the US at 2.1 megatons (which is a sweet spot involving physics I don't understand.)
Soviet bombs were bigger and more plentiful to compensate for their inaccuracy (so they'd shotgun strategic targets to assure a likely hit). This turned into justification for the arms rwce in the 1960s to get ridiculous with General Electric pushing the missile gap. It's how we ended up with so many nukes we could wipe out humanity many times over, not just by carpeting all the continents but with nuclear winter and lingering radioactive fallout.
At that point, the doomsday device in Doctor Strangelove, a really huge cobalt bomb or salted bomb became the more cost-efficient deterrant. While there were actual designs, I don't think anyone actually built it.
『/geekout』
Basically the sweet spot is because nuclear explosions, for that matter all explosions, are spheres. So to double the radius it takes 8 times more "oomph." So a big bomb like the 100MT Tzar Bomba could be replaced by 16 × 1.2 megaton bombs and blow up the same area of ground, without blowing up the 20 cubic miles of air above the ground at the same time. It would also use about 1/4 the fissionable material to produce the 16 bombs as opposed to the one big one.
We are basically being cheapskates with nukes. Yay! I see No PoTeNtIaL iSsUeS aRiSiNg" directly because of this.
Nah they'll be fine. The initial blast radius of a nuclear bomb isn't that big at all. It's the radiation that's terrible and a lot of that comes from the fallout/dust downwind of the blast.
As high up as they would be air, it'd just be a momentary bright light and not a direct one since they will be flying away from the blast.
... if the enemy has fighter jets though ... you're probably going to try and shoot down the bomber. Which might encourage using a drone.
I don't know if they still do this but during the Cold War, they would practice tossing nukes.
The plane flies low and fast, at the right time it climbs hard, belly up and at the top of the loop releases the bomb. While the plane continues its loop downward, the bomb continues in a ballistic trajectory. By the time it hits the target, the plane spends a minimum of time at altitude and a good distance from its target and can GTFO.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toss_bombing
The Russians dropped a 50 megaton bomb from a manned plane without killing the pilots, unless the us is going for the record of largest bomb ever it's not much of a concern beyond ensuring a high enough drop altitude fast enough plane or slowing the bomb with a parachute.
Well the US military could invent the Nova Bomb from Halo. But being in a plane or not wont effect much.
Is it a drone at that point or a guided missle? The lines seem thin
I thought to myself “well. We did it again. This time with gravity” I was both disappointed and relieved.
Time bombs have always been a disappointment also.
Zarya: Огонь по готовности!